


I've got 99 problems (but you aren't one)

by KeyWolf25888



Category: Takumi-kun Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - America, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-03-05 20:15:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 43,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13395426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeyWolf25888/pseuds/KeyWolf25888
Summary: Saki Giichi is a businessman training to take over his father's company, having grown up in America. In charge of putting together a company function, he hires a violinist with a dark past as part of the entertainment.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there, Takumi-kun fandom! I've been a fan of the series for several years, but this is my first foray into writing fanfiction for it (although not my first time writing fanfiction at all). 
> 
> This fic will mostly take place in New York, a place which I am not familiar at all. I'm not even American. Nor do I know a great deal about Japan. Or how business of this kind works. So really I'm completely in over my head here, so if you spot anything I get wrong, feel free to point it out, I'll be very grateful.
> 
> I don't know for sure how long this fic will be - I've got 10 chapters outlined so far, and that's probably only about half of it. The chapters after this one will probably be a bit longer than this... I have a habit of going overboard sometimes.
> 
> With that said, I don't know when I'll update, I have an exam next week that I should have been revising for instead of writing this *sobs*

Gii ran a stressed hand through his hair. Picking up the phone from his desk again, he continued the conversation. “Yes, I understand that you can't make it, sir. I'm sorry about your wife, of course you need to take care of her. My condolences.”

Damnit. He hung up the phone, feeling the stress creep up his throat. “What to do, what to do...” he muttered to himself, beginning to pace around the room.

He didn't even realise that his hand had made its way back into his hair until a gentle cough from behind him brought him out of his musings. Whipping his hand off his head and spinning around, Gii did his best to pretend like he wasn't totally stressing out.

“Are you okay, Mr Saki?” One of the company's employees, one assigned to help Gii to plan this function, was stood looking concernedly at him from the doorway. Cringing internally, Gii did his best to appear as calm as possible, drawing on years of practice.

Nodding, he affirmed that he was okay, and the staff member took his leave. Once he was gone, Gii walked around his desk to shut the door, which had been left open before, and then flopped into his desk chair. He glared at the phone, wishing with all his might that it hadn't rung with that particular message.

How was he supposed to show his dad he could successfully organise a business function if people kept pulling out? Last week it had been the caterers – he had only been lucky that he had had enough time that he could easily organise something with another company. Now the man he had employed to play the piano for the event had had to cancel due to his wife being hospitalised. Gii couldn't even hate him for that, it was a good reason.

Still though, he would need to think of someone to replace him. He ran through his mental list of people it could be... and remembered exactly why he hadn't asked any of them – each of them was busy on the night for one reason or another. Letting out a groan, he realised that he was going to have to ask one of the other staff to find someone that could do it, since he wouldn't have the time to figure it out for himself.

After spending a good minute trying to tame his hair (after all, he always had to appear presentable) he gave up and called through his assistant.

He waited anxiously for her to arrive. It really wasn't what he wanted to do; he had had everything figured out by this point, and it really was a let down that a spanner had been thrown into the works this late in the planning.

Despite having already deduced that there was no musician that he could think of to fill in, he found himself mulling over the situation still.

"Sir?" Gii jumped when Jessica, the assistant he had asked for, knocked on the office door. Taking a second to compose himself, he called for her to come in.

Gii steeled himself to break the bad news to her. “Mr Jeffords can no longer play at the function, his wife's unwell. I need you to book someone else.”

Jessica looked at him with an expression of horror. “But we already told your father that everything was signed off and organised. How will we tell him about this?”

Gii shook his head. “It's okay, I'll talk to him. My only concern is that we might not be able to find a replacement in time; I suggest asking around for someone unknown in order to make such a last minute arrangement more favourable.”

Nodding her head in agreement, Jessica looked relieved. “Thank you sir. I'll make it my priority, I'll try to have someone lined up by tomorrow.”

She left quickly, and Gii was left alone again. Every instinct inside him was screaming at him to just relax for a bit, to do work... to do whatever he needed to in order to put off explaining why the function, once again, wasn't completely sorted.

Only a great amount of practising of self control managed to force him to stand up from his chair, walk over to the door and went out into the corridor.

It always felt slightly surreal, finally working in this place after so long of coming here with his parents.

Something about being able to stride around the building in the knowledge that he would be running it all one day... well, it was terrifying. A good prospect, sure, one day, but at the moment it was the most terrifying thing he could imagine.

Part of him didn't like the idea that he was running to his dad for help, especially given what the planning of the part was meant to represent, but it couldn't be helped just yet. Gii thought himself smart enough to admit where he needed help, or guidance.

Smiling at his dad's receptionist, sat at her desk outside the CEO's office, he knocked on the door, hoping that his dad wasn't busy. He usually wasn't at this time of day, but there was no way of telling.

After a short silence, Gii heard the sound of shuffling feet before the door opened. His dad stood there, looking happy to see him. “Son!” He exclaimed, motioning for him to come into the room.

Gii walked into the familiar office. It had been decorated the same way ever since he could remember, despite how hard his mom had tried to convince him to redecorate over the years. It was always mildly comforting to come in here, and memories of a childhood full of sitting quietly in the corner of the room reading came flooding into his head. It jarred with his current situation, one where there was unequivocally more responsibility resting on his shoulders than seeing how many books he could read in one sitting.

“So, what can I help you with, Giichi?” His dad asked, and Gii cringed internally a little. His dad always insisted on calling him Giichi instead of Gii while they were at work, and it still felt strange. He sat down in the chair behind his desk, and Gii sat gingerly on the chair on the other side of it.

He took a minute to think of how to phrase it in a way that wouldn't make him seem incompetent. “Well, I know that I told you last week that all the details for next week's function were finalised?Though a circumstance completely out of my control, that's... not longer the case.” Seeing his dad begin to look disappointed, Gii hastened to add, “don't worry though, it's nothing disastrous, it's only the musician we hired dropped out. I've got Jessica on the case to get a replacement though, so don't worry.”

His dad nodded. “Ah, I see. Well, so long as you find someone – and I'm sure you will – that's totally fine. I have every faith in you that this function will turn out great.” He smiled at Gii, and it made him feel a little better.

If it didn't work, it would look so bad for him, as his dad then went on to remind him. “Don't forget that this is a test, Giichi. I need to know that when you take over the company, you will be competent in all areas. One of those is being able to network effectively, and functions are a crucial element of that.”

Gii nodded along, trying not to act too bored. Sure, it was important, Gii would absolutely, but... he knew all that already? They had gone over this several times already.

Either way, thank goodness it had gone okay. There had been the slight possibility that his dad may have been in one of his stricter, less forgiving moods, and if that had been the case... well, this meeting might not have gone down so well.

He was so caught up in the relief that things were going well that he nearly didn't catch what his dad said to him next. “Are you sure you don't want us to find you a date for it, son?” Gii stayed silent, reeling a little, trying to process it. “Because we just found out that the daughter of -”

“No!” Gii interjected, finding his voice at last. His dad looked a little shocked at his outburst, and Gii rushed to follow it up. “I don't want a date. I mean, I'm going to have enough on my plate with planning this whole thing, never mind having to worry that someone else is having a good time, right?” He put a forced laugh in there to make it seem real.

Fortunately his dad seemed to buy it, laughing along and nodding. “Alright, I just thought I'd check. If you change your mind though, just say, I'm sure we could work something out.” He ended the sentence with a wink, and Gii wasn't entirely sure what he was implying there.

Nevertheless, he nodded like he did understand. “Well, I think that's everything. Thanks for understanding, dad.” He stood up to leave.

His dad stood up too, and walked him over to the door of the office. “I'm proud of you for handling this so well, son,” he said, clapping Gii on the shoulder. “And it's been nice to be able to take the back seat for once.” He laughed, and Gii laughed too – if it was this stressful he couldn't blame his dad for not wanting to organise it himself.

With a parting handshake, Gii left the office and headed back to his own. He felt lighter now, thankful that the parts he had had to handle were done with. It wouldn't stop him worrying about it until he knew that they had a replacement, but for now there was nothing he could do to effect the outcome.

He simply had to trust that Jessica could find someone just as talented to play the music at the function. He was fairly certain that she would, but it was still an important component of the whole piece. He had known plenty of similar functions where the music had been so awful as to affect the business relations between people for years to come. That would be the worst possible outcome of this, especially since this was really a test to see if he was up to it.

Gii finally relaxed as he closed the door of his office behind him. Slumping against the wall for a second, he took a minute to catch his breath and release the tension that had crept into his muscles towards the end of the meeting.

There was very little he had left to do today – a little paperwork, but nothing that would take a huge amount of time. It meant that he could take a little while to himself – and allowed him to take a while to enjoy his favourite part of this office.

Pushing himself off the wall, he walked over to the other side of the room, to the window that took up an entire wall of the room. It gave great views of the New York city skyline, and particularly at times like this, when the sun was beginning to set, it was almost magical. He could look at it for hours, just taking it in, and he often found himself doing just that.

His earlier mild annoyance at his dad came trickling back the more he thought over the conversation he had just had.

It hadn't just been the asking if he wanted a date for this function, although it did seem to have been a catalyst for his parents asking more than usual. It had been something his parents did regularly for... well, for as long as it had been acceptable for them to ask him if he had a girlfriend.

The problem wasn't so much that he didn't want to date... more that he didn't have any interest in girls.

Being well aware that at some point he would be expected to marry as part of the company, Gii knew that at some point he would have to figure out what to do about the situation. But that could be put off for as long as possible, left for future-Gii to sort out.

For now though he would simply have to resign himself to being dateless at functions like this one, but that was okay with him.

He stayed looking outside for as long as he could get away with. After today's worry, he needed some time to slow down and enjoy life.

**

Gii was working on his computer the next day when another knock on the door interrupted him. Calling out for them to come in, he was glad to take a break from spreadsheets for a bit.

Jessica poked her head around the door. She didn't look like she was going to deliver bad news, and Gii became hopeful.

“Well it took a while, and lots of phone calls, but I think I found someone,” she began.

Gii grinned. “You did? And they're okay with being hired on such short notice?”

“Um...” Jessica hesitated, and Gii's hopes fell a little. “ It's fine!” Jessica blurted out, presumably seeing his expression darken. “I mean, I hope you don't mind, but I couldn't find anyone local. I tried asking around some of the other people that have organised these sorts of things, and there were a bunch of musicians that were still busy. But then I got a stroke of luck, and I talked to the manager of a violinist that would be willing to do it.”

Gii frowned. “That's great, but how not-local is he? What are you not telling me?”

“Ah...” Jessica fidgeted a little. “The man who recommended him said that he was really really good, but he lives in Japan, and I thought that you might like that because I know that you're Japanese and all, and the manager said that it would be fine so long as you paid for the travel expenses, and -”

“Jessica.” Gii cut her off firmly. “Calm down. I don't mind that he needs flying in, it's not like we haven't had to fly people in before. All I really care about is that we have someone to fill the part. You did well.”

Jessica finally stopped hyperventilating, and breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. I'll go right away and call them to let them know he's hired. Shall I book the plane tickets, sir?”

“Yes, please do. The sooner we we get this whole thing finalised, the sooner I can relax,” Gii chuckled.

Jessica laughed politely, and turned around to leave.

Then Gii's curiosity caught up with him, and he absently wondered if he'd heard of this violin genius before. “Wait,” he called out. Jessica paused with the door open, half turning to face him. “What's his name?”

“Takumi,” Jessica replied. “Takumi Hayama.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure I like the first part of this chapter... but the rest of it's fine. Apologies for this chapter taking a while to arrive, I'm trying to work on too many fics at the same time... *sigh*

Gii tapped his foot on the floor. “What do you mean the flowers are here yet?”

The woman in front of him visibly trembled. “I- I'm sorry sir. The delivery company rang us not long ago, and said that some of the batch were wilted. They sent off for a new lot to be delivered as a priority, but they still won't be here for another hour at least.”

Sighing through his nose, Gii did his best to calm his stress. He was beginning to get a headache, and that really would be counterproductive today.

“Okay. Right. Good.” His response was short, but he didn't have the mental capacity to think of anything more to say – plus he didn't really have to say any more. He was too busy thinking about everything else that was still yet to be set up to be able to give too much of his time to this.

The food was being delivered soon for the hired chefs to cook, and that really was something that couldn't afford to go wrong. The chefs had been put on a strict schedule to get the food done exactly to time, and if ingredient were even a little late in arriving it would throw everything off and then the whole evening would be thrown off and his dad would be disappointed and...

Realising that his thoughts were beginning to spiral, he began to power walk over to where the food would be being delivered. It should be getting there about now, and it was simply another thing to check off his mental checklist. More importantly, it would show his parents that he was capable of being good at organising.

Not that he hadn't been proving himself capable of this sort of thing for a while, but still, this was The Big One™ and it could even make or break him for the next few years, at least.

By the time he reached the kitchens, the food had already been delivered. Catching his breath, he stood and observed the chefs for a while, doing his best to seem as much like an aloof employer as possible.

Perhaps to them it might have seemed convincing, but unbeknownst to him his mother had also slipped inside the kitchen and stood beside him. “All seems to be going well,” she said quietly in his ear.

Gii jumped about a foot in the air as she did, taken completely by surprise and unsure whether she meant it as a compliment or that she hadn't been expecting that to happen. He simply nodded, unwilling to commit to an answer for now.

It felt strange, to be stood there motionless while the bustle of the kitchen went on around them. Not only was it jarring, but it reminded Gii that he had other things to attend to as well as the food. Making quiet excuses to his mother, who nodded understandingly (she probably also had things to check on in preparation for this evening) Gii strode through the kitchen and out of the doors that led into the main part of the venue itself.

The hotel ballroom that they had chosen this time was done up much fancier than it usually was, and get all Gii could think about was looking at it with a critical eye, to make sure that it was all as he had planned it to be. Coloured banners had been hung, tablecloths had been draped over tables, the stage was set for the musician booked. The flowers for the tables hadn't arrived yet, but for now it seemed like everything was going to plan.

Well, that was some form of relief. It didn't really stop Gii from continuing to mull the decisions over in his head (and it was unlikely that he would stop worrying about it until the night had ended), but it did mean that he could afford to leave in about half an hour to get changed into a more party-esque outfit.

Before that though, he would make one more circuit of the parts of the hotel reserved for the function, just to make sure all was well. His parents would be around still, of course, and would be changing their outfits closer to the time, once he had returned.

Walking back through the rooms slowly, taking in all of the details to make sure he hadn't missed anything, he was glad to see that nothing seemed to be going wrong. Reaching the back, he noticed the lorry delivering the flowers pulling up to the back entrance, and he breathed an actual sigh of relief. He watched for a minute as the workers scrabbled to unload it, and was certain that what had been delivered was correct.

It didn't take as long as he thought to rush home and put on his fanciest suit. Having attended this kind of thing for most of his life, starting from when he was very young, he didn't find it difficult at all to dress well for them. In fact it was mostly muscle memory at this point, being done on autopilot and before he knew it, he was ready.

Checking the time on his watch, he saw that he still had a few minutes before he needed to leave. Early, as always. Gii prided himself on his ability to be punctual and organised, and it was rare that he failed.

Deciding to use his remaining time wisely, Gii made his way over to the bathroom. Nothing like a good pep-talk to get him in the mood for a party, right?

Resting his hands on the counter that held the sink, Gii looked up into the mirror set above it. From an outside perspective, he seemed to be what he wanted to be. Calm. Collected. On fleek.

But most importantly he looked like the businessman that he wanted to be. That he was.

Being able to see it went some way to getting rid of his anxiety as well. No matter if he didn't feel like he was as put together as he wanted to be, he could certainly do what he had always done and put forward the appearance of being so.

'You can do this,' Gii told himself as he glared at himself through his reflection. 'Everyone is going to love you. You already know most of them. This is just formalities. Dad has been pleased with all the planning. There's no way it can go wrong at this point.'

A faint beeping from his watch alarm pulled him out of his pre-game pep talk, and he straightened up, turning the alarm off. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, doing his best to relax as much as possible as he did. There was no more time for deliberation.

Speeding his way back to the hotel, Gii did his best to keep his nerves at bay. Deep breathing and focussing on the things that he could control (in this case, getting to the hotel on time and making sure that this evening went smoothly) were the ways in which he kept calm on occasions like this.

Sometimes he cursed himself for not being as good as this as he had been trained to be. After all, this would be his life after his father passed the management of the company over to him, and throughout his life he had been made to attend plenty of these types of functions as part of his training for that.

As had been planned, Gii entered the building just as his parents left. They wouldn't be gone long, he knew, since it was only an hour to go until it started and there was always the chance that some might turn up early.

Taking a walk to make sure that nothing had gone wrong in his absence, Gii was pleased to note that the flowers were arranged just as he had imagined them, and that the place cards had been put in the correct order as per the seating chart that he had put together.

Taking a quick break, he sat in one of the chairs in the lobby and allowed the gentle sounds of people rushing around, doing their jobs, to wash over him. The soft cream tones of the place were oddly calming somehow, and Gii tried to just observe, and not worry too much about controlling things. At some point there might have been people sat on the chairs next to him, but if there were he didn't really notice them very much. However, he did watch the people who sat up and got up and moved around on the chairs opposite, on the other side of the large room, and he found it odd how the use of the hotel could still go on. Plenty of them were clearly tourists, wearing mismatched travel clothing and too-large suitcases that they struggled to pull along behind them. Gii could sympathise with that, he had done plenty of travelling in his time.

To be completely honest he didn't know how long he had sat there, but what he did know was that it was his father coming back that broke his trance. “...son? Giichi?” Gii blinked, and looked up. His father was leaning down over him, a concerned look in his eyes. “Are you okay? You know, if you're really not up to this it's okay, there will always be another ch -”

“No,” Gii interrupted. “I mean, I'm fine, I can do this.” His father looked pleased, and Gii hauled himself up and out of the cushy chair.

The first few guests had arrived, and were standing and talking, with glasses of champagne in their hands, in the section of the ballroom designed for that exact purpose. Gii knew that this was the place where a good portion of the business deals that would be made tonight would take place, and so it had to set just the right mood to facilitate it most efficiently.

Everything was looking good... the room was beginning to fill up, but there weren't too many people here yet.... yet Gii couldn't shake the nagging feeling that something was missing.

Trying to look around the room sneakily, without looking weird, Gii tried to figure out what was off about it.

Everything was set up right, just has it had been earlier.... then his eyes moved to look at the far end of the room, and instantly Gii realised what it was. The musician hadn't arrived yet.

Gii frowned. Oh yeah, he had forgotten about that. He was meant to be Japanese too, right?

What began as looking around to see if any of his assistants were around – he really needed to be able to talk to one of them about this – turned into just observing who was here. The more he looked, the more he began to feel out of place. It wasn't the first time that had been the case at a function like this, but it was all the more acute when he was the host. Everyone else here was just so old, and white. Gii was neither of those things, and while he was certainly just as capable as any of them, it didn't help his confidence.

Finally he saw one of his assistants walking towards him with a worried look on her face. This immediately made Gii more concerned about what might have been going on – not having some form of music in the background wouldn't ruin the whole night, but it certainly would run the risk of making him and his family look bad.

“Bad news,” she said as she came within hearing range, but keeping her voice low enough that none of the guests would be able to easily overhear the conversation. “Our violinist is stuck in traffic right now, so that's why he's not here yet.”

Gii nodded. That was understandable, traffic was something out of the control of anyone and he couldn't entirely fault him for it. But if that was the issue, then why did the woman in front of him still look more worried than would be necessary for a simple traffic issue?

“But there's some more stuff,” she bit her lip, clearly struggling to word whatever she was trying to tell him. “I've only just received an email that was supposed to be sent last week about this man. Um, he has a few... special requests that need to be kept in mind.”

Gii nodded again, beginning to get a little impatient. “That's fine, what are they?”

“Uh... well he can't be touched...” she looked up at him as though she was expecting him to get mad at her for it. Sure, that was an odd request, but he'd dealt with clients with stranger ones before. From wanting all the guests to try some obscure weird food from their native country (it had taken buckets of water to get the taste of the _strömming_ out of his mouth) or insisting that Gii needed to face away from him every time they met in person, somehow they had always been complied with.

“But our real problem is something else actually... he doesn't speak English much, and we don't have a translator...”

What? Most of the musicians that they had hired for these sorts of things were either native English speakers, or had had fancy enough upbringings along with their classical music education that most of them spoke English to a proficient degree. The fact that this would be one that wouldn't be able to speak English straight off blew his mind a little.

This... this would make everything so much more difficult.

Gii stood there, frozen. “How... what...?” Were the only things that came out of his mouth. His eyes darted wildly around the room. The guests were _here_. The musician would be here soon. They didn't have time to get hold of a translator. In theory Gii's parents could have done the job, but they were seriously busy doing business deal things.

That meant that the only option was... him. “I'll do it,” he blurted out, and then realised what a terrible idea that was. Yes, he spoke Japanese, but over the past few years he had only used it with his family, and even then it was only sometimes. As a result his Japanese was extremely rusty – would he even be up for having a conversation with someone that he didn't already know, never mind translating?

The assistant's eyes widened. “You will?” She seemed about as surprised as Gii was, to be honest.

Slowly, Gii nodded. “I... I guess I will, yeah. Or at least, I'll do my best.”

She sighed in relief. “Thank you sir! That's so kind of you, things are looking less bad now.” She took a deep breath and released it, a clear sign that she was trying to avoid panicking. “I'll bring him straight to you when he gets here.”

Before Gii could protest – how soon would that be? - she was gone, off to sort some other minor detail out, no doubt. Oh god.

What had he done?

Trying to keep his breathing and general outwards appearance normal, Gii walked to the edge of the room to try to avoid having to talk to anyone. He would probably be fine with making small amounts of conversation with the musician when he arrived, but if he knew anything about the rest of the guests he was sure that at some point they would want to talk to the musician and what if they used really complicated language and he didn't know it and he made mistakes because he didn't know much about the language of music in English never mind Japanese and....

There was just so much that could go wrong.

For a while he attempted to run through some of the Japanese lessons he had been forced to go to as a teenager in his head, before realising that it had been too long ago for him to remember exactly what any of them had been about, or to remember some of the more complicated grammar rules. Instead he then tried to focus on some of the more simple stuff, but then that was _too_ simple, the kind of knowledge of Japanese that had been in his head since he was a child and had grown up knowing Japanese as well as English.

Shit, none of this was helping.

Gii slumped against the wall, trying to conserve his strength for the rest of the evening. Watching more and more guests arrive, Gii couldn't help but worry that he might have to act as a middleman for translating for the musician for _all_ of these people. Obviously he would if he had to, but like... he really didn't want to have to.

Uh oh.

One of the men noticed him hiding in the corner and began to walk over. Gii internally groaned – he really didn't have the brainpower to make light conversation with someone that he really didn't know while he was focussing on this.

“Hello young man,” the stranger greeted him. “Aren't you a little young to be at something like this?”

Hearing those words brought back a lifetime of memories from attending functions of this type.

**

_Gii hid behind his dad's legs as the tall man in front of him leaned down to ruffle his hair. “Aren't you a little young to be here?”_

_Shaking his head, Gii mumbled his disagreement. His dad did his best to push him further forward, but to no avail, Gii was too busy being shy._

_He hadn't wanted to come tonight. His dad had promised that there would be other little boys his age to play with, but then all of them had pulled out and so he was left alone, clinging to his parents the entire evening._

_Yes, he probably was too young to be here. But even at this young age, Gii knew that this was the sort of thing that his daddy did for his job, and he wanted to be able to do it just as well as he did._

_**_

_At seventeen, Gii was a pro at dealing with events like these. He had been brought to them ever since he could remember, paraded around by his parents as their pride and joy, and as a child he had enjoyed it a lot, not finding anything strange in it._

_But over the years the amount of people his age had dwindled, the children of his parents' business partners either unwilling to be a part of this or doing something more important that night (there really was no in between). This left him in the awkward position of not really having anyone to talk to tonight, too awkward to trail after his parents like he had done when he was small, and yet not quite enough of an equal to be able to talk to any of the old men there on his own merits._

“ _Young man, are you not too young to be part of this?” A voice came from behind him. Gii spun around, a polite and fake smile on his face already._

_There stood a man he didn't recognise -unusual, since most of the people in his parents' circle had practically watched him grow up through these things, and knew exactly who he was and probably his latest exam results too._

_Being this age was just irritating really. He was too young to properly feel a part of these meetings, and yet he was too old to distract those who might question it with cuteness. There was just no way to win, and Gii couldn't stand it. “Um, no, I'm not too young.” His response came out a little sharper than he had intended, but hopefully it would get the message across._

_The stranger narrowed his eyes a little. “Alright, no need to get so upset about it.” He stalked away, and Gii felt a little bad for being harsh about it. It wasn't like he was to know how often Gii had been asked that question. But still._

**

Gii gave him a polite smile. Really he should have been prepared for more people to ask things like this. After all he had been the one to make up the guest list, and he knew full well that some of these people were much more well acquainted with his father rather than with him.

“Ah, you could say that, I suppose,” Gii did his best to stay polite. “but I'm actually the one who organised this.” If he hadn't felt out of place before, he definitely would after having this conversation.

The man took a sip of the champagne he was holding. “Really? I thought that it was being arranged by...” his face screwed up in concentration, “Giichi Saki?”

Years of training was the only thing stopping Gii from not reacting to that. To be fair, it could be an easy mistake if this man was in fact much more familiar with his father, but even so, it was usually common courtesy to know the face of your host for the evening.

“That's me. Perhaps you were mistaking me for my father.” Gii said shortly. He really wasn't in the mood to act more friendly than he was really feeling.

The man blinked slowly, and cocked his head to the side. “It is?”

_Resist the urge to sigh..._

“Yes, sir. I am the one that organised this evening.” Gii didn't enjoy having to repeat himself, but sometimes it was necessary around people like this. For all that they were supposed to be some of the most savvy people in business, in Gii's experience they weren't always all that bright when it came to more social times.

“Oh...” the man didn't seem to have anything more to say now that his initial talking point of Gii being young was gone. For a moment Gii thought that would be the end of things, but then he came back with another question. “So then why are you the host for this thing instead of your dad?”

Well if he'd thought about it for two seconds he could have come up with the answer himself, but Gii had to answer – it wouldn't do to get into trouble for something small like this when things were going so well so far. “It's a... a test of sorts, to see whether I can.” He did his best to explain it as simply as possible.

Really all of this was just adding to all of his anxiety. He was going to have to deal with a genuinely stressful situation in not much time, and he was having to talk tothis buffoon. Why did this have to happen to him?

Spotting his assistant walking towards him with a serious look on her face, Gii took this opportunity while it was present itself to him. “If you'll excuse me, I need to go,” Gii quickly made his excuses and walked away.

It occurred to him as he was walking how ironic it was that he had been dreading this moment and yet now things had changed to make him see it as a good thing.

“He's here,” she murmured. Turning to look behind her, she gestured to the man who had just come through the main door to the hall.

It was like time had slowed down.

Gii watched as the man looked around the room with wide eyes. A sightly breeze coming in from the outside ran through his hair, and if Gii hadn't known better he could have sworn that the man was walking in slow motion. He was wearing a thick hoodie that swamped him and made him seem smaller than Gii was sure he actually was – and the sweater paws that the too-long sleeves formed on his hands were extremely cute.

Honestly it took too long for him to notice the violin case that he was holding in front of him with both hands. It gave the impression of nervousness, like the violin case was his shield from all that could go wrong tonight.

His expression was shy, and Gii's initial reaction was to simply find it cute. But when he thought about it more, something about the way that he looked around with an innocent look on his face, clutching at the handle of the case looked... somewhat familiar. Gii couldn't quite put his finger on it, but it almost seemed as though they had met sometime before? Could they have done?

No. It couldn't have been possible. If they had met in America before Gii would definitely have remembered it, and in all the times he had been to Japan he hadn't had any time for making friends his own age. It simply could never have happened.

His assistant waved at him to get his attention, and time sped back up. As soon as the man spotted her frantically waving arm, he began to make his way over.

Gii began to panic more. He had been worried enough about having to interpret for a stranger as it was, and now he was going to have to interpret for a _handsome_ stranger? That just made things ten times worse; he would have to do his best to keep his brain on track and not get distracted, and that was just an additional problem.

The closer the man got, the more Gii panicked. The closer he got, the more handsome he became, and Gii was perhaps staring a little too much to be appropriate.

Coming to a stop next to and slightly behind the assistant, the musician kept his eyes ever so slightly downwards, and frankly Gii was internally squeeing over how cute he was.

Out of the habit of a lifetime, Gii automatically extended his hand for a handshake.

As the musician flinched away from his hand, Gii remembered what the assistant had told him not half an hour before, that he didn't like to be touched.

Mentally berating himself, Gii quickly removed his hand and bowed a little instead. “It's nice to meet you,” he mumbled. It was only when the musician looked a little confused that Gii realised he had been accidentally speaking in English.

“Um...” he glanced at the assistant for some kind of help, any kind of help. She shrugged, looking desperately hopeless herself.

The musician seemed more confused than any of them. “ _I... I was told I was going to have a translator_?” He asked in Japanese, sounding hesitant.

Gii nodded. “ _Um... yeah, that's... that's me. I mean, I'm also the host. But yeah.”_

The man seemed confused again. “ _Oh... Well then, um, I'm Hayama Takumi, and it's nice to meet you too.”_

Okay, so far, so good. Gii began to feel more under control of the situation, and he was sure that it was visible in his own body language as he felt himself become less tense. “ _I trust that you had an alright journey here?”_ He internally cringed at the awkwardness of the conversation, but he really couldn't think of anything better to say – and it really didn't help that having to look at someone so handsome was fucking with his thought process.

Takumi smiled a little, and frankly Gii had to hold himself back from squeeing at the way it lit up his face. “ _Yes, it was okay, thank you. Although I wasn't quite prepared for the volume of traffic here.”_ He laughed a little, and Gii joined in.

“ _I'm glad to hear it,”_ he said. Then he went back into boss mode, remembering that Takumi was in fact here to do a job. “ _Well the stage is all set up for you. My assistant here will direct you to a place where you can get ready, if you want to. Good luck.”_ Phew. He hadn't sounded as formal as he would have liked, but clearly his Japanese wasn't as rusty as he had thought.

Takumi bowed, and said his goodbyes. “Take him to the back room, will you?” Gii told his assistant. She nodded, and gestured for him to follow her.

Gii felt a little bad for being glad that he was gone, but at the same time wished that he didn't know that he would have to translate more later.

Still, for now he could simply relax and 'enjoy' the function. Sort of.

No longer tense, Gii was happy to talk to some of the guests. A few times he caught the eyes of his parents from across the room, and they seemed pretty happy with the way things were going by the looks of it.

It had been about ten minutes since Takumi had disappeared into the back rooms, and Gii was beginning to wonder when he would emerge. It couldn't take him that long to simply get changed and take a violin out of a case, surely?

He did his best to focus on the conversation he was meant to be having with one of the men here that he actually knew somewhat well, but he was pretty sure that he knew that Gii's mind was elsewhere (hopefully he would simply assume that Gii was thinking about all the organising he did for this evening to take place, and not about cute boys).

So invested was he in not looking eager to see Takumi perform that he actually managed to miss him going onstage. The gentle sound of violin music began, and Gii jumped a little, the tension that he had built up over the past fifteen minutes making him extremely on edge.

Spinning around, he gaped at the stage.

Takumi had changed into a very professional looking suit, and somehow looked so much more confident on the stage. Gone was the shy looking boy from earlier, although he looked as cute as he did his thing.

If Gii had had any doubts about the ability of this man, given that he wasn't as acclaimed as some of the other musicians he had heard perform at this kinda of event, he certainly didn't now. Was he a professional Violinist? If he wasn't Gii was certain that he had to make it happen.

As he was busy boggling internally, Takumi noticed Gii watching him and threw him a gentle smile. _Gah_. Gii felt his heart clench in a not entirely unpleasant way. It was just so sweet.

He gulped.

He was pretty sure he was fucked.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Leave me comments, or as with last time you can reach me at twitter or tumblr, or if you want to be anonymous I now have a CuriousCat account, where I am also KeyWolf25888
> 
> Thanks for reading, and have a nice day ^_^


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know it's been like two months... I've been busy? Anyway, this took a lot longer to get done than I thought it would, but here it is, yay!

For the thousandth time that night, Gii's eyes were drawn subconsciously to the stage. He pulled his attention back to the man in front of him guiltily, aware that they might have noticed the way that he was entirely distracted.

He just couldn't _help_ it though... Takumi looked so serene up there, and it was so nice to see. Something about it made him want to watch, not just listen to him, and it was affecting his ability to do his job (not that he was really complaining).

Still though, he didn't think the people he was meant to be talking to would notice too much. The dinner had taken place a few hours now, and he knew full well that they were all stuffed and feeling lazy, they were hardly going to be on the ball at this moment.

"... Giichi? Are you listening?" Crap. Clearly the man he was supposed to be talking to had noticed.

Quickly he turned back to him. "Yes, absolutely," he lied, staying as calm as possible. "What were you saying about the sales in your company?"

The man (honestly Gii couldn't remember his name, which was probably bad, but he was doing all of the talking, so it didn't really matter) continued to talk about things that Gii really didn't care about. He did his best to pay attention – not only was it potentially actually going to be useful when it came to their competition, but most importantly he needed to be able to make noises at the right point in the conversation to make him think Gii was listening.

How this conversation had even started Gii didn’t know. He was pretty sure that he had started off talking to someone that he actually knew, and that at some point this other man had joined them and then his friend had left the two of them alone. Still, some part of him felt like he should know who he was, and he gave him another once over to try to figure it out.

It didn’t help; the bald head, short stature and black tuxedo fitted the description of too many of the other guests. The generic nature of his description also admittedly made it very difficult to keep focussed on him…

Takumi looked so good...

"... and that's when my ex-wife stopped talking to me and stole all the bread rolls." Okay, maybe Gii hadn't been paying as much attention as he thought he had. Nodding as though he knew exactly what was going on, Gii tried to salvage the situation.

"That's... that's too bad," Gii laughed, hoping that it was meant to be a funny anecdote.

The man nodded, making Gii feel a little better. Then he turned to look behind him, where Gii had been distracted to all night. "That young man's quite talented, isn't he?" He commented. Perhaps Gii was a little quick to nod, but oh well, it was done now. "I might like to talk to him after this is over..." he mused. Then he turned back to Gii. "Where did you find him? I don't think I've seen him before?"

Unlike the rest of the conversation, that one statement made Gii's heart race. "Oh, I didn't really find him, one of my assistants did... I'm not entirely sure how, through contacts, I suspect." He shrugged, attempting to seem casual.

That answer didn't seem to appease the other much though. "Well that's no matter if I can talk to himself, you know. Do you mind if I do?"

"Ah..." Gii did his best to stall. "Well he only speaks Japanese, so that... might be a little difficult."

The other squinted at him. "But you speak Japanese, don't you? Could you not help an old friend out?" Gii internally cringed. Not only was this man hardly an old friend, but he had been secretly hoping that he wouldn't actually have to do too much translating. Earlier had been enough for him, and he had thought that maybe if they sent Takumi off quickly enough he might not have to do much else other than talk to him a little.

Maybe if he was lucky Takumi would keep playing for so long that this man would be too tired and go home. If he was kept from being able to that way… then Gii would not have to worry about having to translate at all.

Allowing the conversation to go on for a little while longer, Gii tried to keep himself interested in the inane things the other was telling him about. He had to do his best to keep his eyes away from the stage, and he was more successful than he had been before, and yet still not completely.

Checking his watch nervously (it was midnight already? How?), he realised that he had no idea what time they had agreed that Takumi would cease playing. Would it be soon? He didn’t know; some of the musicians he had hired had been happy to continue playing as late as the party went on, but some were strict about the exact time they would be stopping. There was no way of telling just by looking… did he look kind of tired? Gii had no idea.

There was a definite conflict going on inside him. Gii didn’t want to translate more than he had to, but the longer this went on the longer he would keep staring and being awkward. That really wasn’t ideal.

Soon enough, Gii's fears came true. Takumi stopped playing, bowed, and left the stage, heading back to the room he had put his belongings in beforehand.

Making his excuses to the (still anonymous) man, Gii hurried off to intercept Takumi. Or at least, he attempted to.

One man grabbed his arm as he slipped through the crowds. "Excuse me," the man said, "I couldn't help but wonder who the young man playing the violin today was?" Gii fought the urge to grimace.

"He's a..." Gii went to tell him, but then realised he had no answer for him. Without his brain's consent, he found his mouth saying, "actually, why don't I let him tell you himself?" Shit, now he'd offered to translate, he really couldn't get out of it now.

This other man grinned at Gii. "Great idea! Bring him over."

Guh, great, more work.

This time Gii's walk through the rabble was slower. If Takumi left before he got there, he would have a good excuse... but then it would also be a downside to not see Takumi again. Either way he couldn't win.

As he rounded the corner to the dressing room, Gii ran into Jessica **.** She looked fairly harried, and Gii almost felt bad for her but for the fact that he was in the same boat.

"Does Takumi need to leave soon?" Gii asked quickly. The answer to this would define what happened in the next few hours, and judging by the look on her face she had no idea.

"I... I don't know," she stuttered. "I assumed you would have asked him."

Gii blinked in astonishment. "I saw him for two minutes," he said, "how would I have had the time to ask him that?"

"That's... a good point," she muttered. Then she gestured towards the door. "I guess you could ask him now?"

Gii sighed. He would have to, and he steeled himself to try to not get distracted while talking to Takumi. Still, he had to do his best to appear calm, he was technically still working. More importantly, he had to keep up appearances around his employees.

Knocking confidently on the door in front of them, Gii did his best to pretend like the action hadn't made him very nervous.

Really it was strange that it had made him so nervous; he'd done this sort of thing plenty of time, there should have been very little in doing this that would be nervous-worthy. After all, he'd pretty much been trained for talking to people like this for his entire life. He'd just spent the last six hours talking to some of the most boring businessmen he'd ever met for goodness sake, this should have been a walk in the park.

Somehow waiting for that door to open seemed to last for several hours. He could actually feel his heart rate increase slightly, and he did everything in his power to keep that from showing.

Eventually the door opened a crack. Gii could see Takumi through the crack, and he did his best to smile reassuringly. It seemed that when Takumi realised who was at the door, he immediately opened the door fully and bowed. " _Saki sama! I hope you were pleased with my performance today?"_

Had Takumi really assumed that that was what he was here for? Either way, Gii was quick to nod. " _Yes, of course! You will receive the rest of your pay soon."_

Takumi seemed relieved to hear this, as he sighed and visibly relaxed. It was only now that Gii realised that he was dressed much more casually than he had been onstage. In contrast to before, when his tuxedo had made him seem mysterious and alluring, his current attire of jeans and a hoodie made him look soft and fluffy. In short, Gii loved it just as much, if not more.

" _Thank you. Do you need anything else from me?"_ He seemed so hopeful that Gii almost didn't want to say anything about having to talk to a bunch of strangers through Gii... and yet he sort of had to. Promises were important to him.

" _Well, actually..."_ Gii began, not having a clue where he was going with this, " _a lot of the people out there really admired your playing today, and I... I think they were sort of hoping to talk to you?"_

Gii hoped that posing it as a question might make Takumi decline. He watched Takumi's face for any hint of what he might be thinking, but the other man was completely stoic as he looked at Gii. Gii wanted to think that he was merely thoughtful, actually considering the request.

When Takumi finally gave a tentative nod, Gii was genuinely surprised. _"I wouldn't mind doing it... but how will I talk to them if they know no Japanese?"_

" _I'll translate, don't worry."_ Gii surprised himself with how eager he sounded. _"Besides, you won't have to answer anything you don't want to, I'll make sure of it."_

Takumi nodded. _"Okay then. Am I okay to leave all my things here still?"_ He seemed nervous, for some reason, and Gii was quick to reassure him.

_"Of course! Hopefully this won't take too long anyway."_ He paused. _"Do you need any more time here before you go back out here?"_

Takumi's face took on what Gii now thought of as his 'thoughtful' look, and after a moment's hesitation, replied, " _yes, if that's alright. I'll be out in a minute."_

Gii nodded, and turned to leave. It was only then that he remembered that Jessica had been there the entire time, and had no clue what was going on, judging by the look of confusion on her face. Motioning to her to follow him, Gii walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.

"Is everything okay?" she asked, sounding anxious. She probably was, going by how stressful this evening had been.

Gii waved a dismissive hand. "It's all fine," he told her. "He's agreed to talk to the people out there, but he just needs a minute to... to get ready or something."

Seeming appeased, she nodded, but didn't seem to be much less anxious. "Well if it's all fine, I'm going to go then. If that's okay?" Gii couldn't deny that the idea of having some time alone with Takumi made him simultaneously nervous and excited, and so he easily gave her permission. Besides, given her lack of knowledge of Japanese, Gii couldn't imagine what use she would be.

She left quite quickly, and Gii hoped that she didn't have much more to do. It was late, and he wasn't totally work-orientated, he could appreciate that people were beginning to leave and there was less need for people to be around.

The atmosphere tense (or at least, Gii felt tense. Perhaps that was just him being nervous, actually), he waited around anxiously for Takumi to reappear.

Gii actually jumped when the door opened. It was this that made him realise just how tense he had been, and he focused to seem relaxed - it wouldn't do to have his image ruined.

" _I'm ready now_ ," Takumi smiled at him. _Thump_. His heart skipped a beat. That smile... Had Gii ever seen anything better? He didn't know.

Gii coughed, grounding himself. " _Sounds good. This way."_ He gestured towards the door to the ballroom, and walked away, allowing Takumi to follow.

“ _Actually, come to think of it, would you like a drink_?” Gii asked, stopping just inside the doors. “You just did a whole lot of work in a stuffy suit, you must be thirsty?”

Takumi actually looked a little surprised. “ _Yes, that would be nice, thank you_.”

Walking over to the bar, Gii asked Takumi what he would like. “ _Oh… just water, if that’s okay_.” To be fair that made sense, what with the time and the fact that alcohol probably wouldn’t hydrate him.

Ordering two waters, one for each of them, they stood waiting for them to arrive in silence. Gii simply didn’t know what to say; there were too many thoughts in his head, the foremost of them being ‘pretty’. Despite the fact that now that they were up close to one another and Gii could see the light sheen on sweat on Takumi’s face, it somehow did not take away in any way from his attractiveness.

If Gii was being honest, he was mostly trying to avoid staring too much. It wouldn’t do to be seen as creepy; someone that good looking must get that all the time.

Perhaps Gii had even underestimated how dehydrated Takumi was – the moment the water arrived, Takumi chugged half the glass.

Keeping his chuckles to himself, Gii picked up his own glass and sipped it a little. When it seemed that Takumi had drunk enough, Gii asked, “ _shall we continue_?”

Takumi nodded, and together they made their way back over to the main hall.

Standing on the edge of the room, Gii deliberated who to go to first. It wouldn't make a massive amount of difference, since it was likely that the same information would be given to both parties, but still, that made the choice all the more difficult.

Takumi stood beside him, waiting. Gii knew that he needed to make a decision before it became weird, and decisively took a step forward. Well, the first man he was talking to would do.

Weaving in and out of people, Gii searched for him. There were just so many people, a sea of black and white suits, it was so difficult to pick out one individual. Frankly Gii was impressed that Takumi was able to keep up with him with how often he turned and slipped between groups of chatting people. Even though it was late, and plenty of people had left already, there was still a decent amount left.

Eventually he located his friend, in the middle of talking to another group of older men. Walking up to them as confidently as possible, Gii tapped him on the shoulder. "Hello... I've brought Mr Hayama to see you."

Trying not to let on how worried he was, he glanced over at Takumi, trying to gauge whether he was feeling okay. Just like him, Takumi appeared to be covering whatever he was actually feeling.

In contrast, the businessmen in front of them were a bit drunk and more than willing to be over-friendly with them. "Hi there!" The man's voice was too loud for how close together they were, and Gii squashed down a grimace. "I'm Mr Harrington," he introduced himself, mostly addressing it towards Takumi (probably wrongly assuming that Gii would know all of them by name).

He held a hand out towards him. For a second Gii stared at it, then up at Takumi. The other man too was staring at the hand, making no move to go anywhere near it, and Gii wasn’t entirely sure but he thought that Takumi's breathing might be speeding up.

Then Gii remembered why that was, and before Mr Harrington could get offended by the obvious rebuttal, he spoke up. "Oh, Mr Hayama doesn't do touching." Would that explain it adequately? The last thing Gii wanted was to be asked more questions about why that was the case - he didn't know the answers, and he didn't want to have to ask about something so personal.

Mr Harrington frowned, but didn't argue. "Oh..." He retracted his arm, and then seemed to brighten again. "Your playing is excellent, young man."

Oh boy. Time to translate. " _He says your playing is excellent."_ He debated whether to add the 'young man' into it - while he was well aware that he should be trying to be as accurate as possible, but it just seemed so unnecessarily demeaning to include.

Besides, seeing Takumi's eyes light up at the compliment made him even more unwilling to add anything that might play it down. Glancing at Gii, and then back at Mr Harrington, Takumi eagerly instructed him, " _please thank him, Saki-san,"_ and bowed slightly.

Gii was happy to relay the message, and when Mr Harrington began to deliver more intricate compliments, mentioning specific pieces he had playing, that Gii had to do his best to translate without really understanding what he was saying. Still, Takumi seemed to get it, so clearly he wasn't doing that bad of a job.

After a while it became almost mindless, to be the middleman between two people talking animatedly about music he knew nothing about. Still, when it seemed like they were finally finishing up, what they began to talk about interested Gii.

"So I'm planning a function of my own in a few months, and I've been looking for a musician for it. Do you think you'd be available?"

Gii raised an eyebrow as he relayed this information to Takumi. Almost as a continuation of the energy of the conversation, Takumi lit up, agreeing enthusiastically without seeming to take time to think about it.

The logistics of the idea seemed to take no part in the decision, and Gii couldn’t decide whether that made him respect Takumi more or less. It was clear that he was looking to further his career in this way, and that wasn’t really a bad thing. Besides, he could afford to make it over here to play for Gii, so it was probably possible for him to get to other ones.

Even after the decision had been made, the man seemed to want to keep the conversation going, clearly discontent with simply booking Takumi. “So how long have you been playing the violin?” He asked.

Turning to Takumi to hear his answer, Gii couldn’t deny that he was a little curious about that too. Little expression was shown on Takumi’s face; Gii couldn’t decide what kind of reaction was going on in there.

Takumi shrugged. “ _Most of my life_ ,” was his answer. It did technically answer the question, Gii couldn’t fault it.

When Gii related this answer back to Mr Harrington, he seemed a little weirded out about it, but he didn’t say anything more. Aside from making sure that Gii had his contact details, there seemed to be little more that he wanted to say to him, and so he figured they should probably move on.

Once they had finished talking to Mr Harrington, another man tapped him on the shoulder. "Hello - I overheard you talking to Harrington just now, and I'd like to enquire about booking Mr Hayama for a dinner I wish to hold next month?"

Gii blinked, taking a second to realise what he had been asked. Recovering quickly and relaying the message to Takumi, he saw Takumi become just as ecstatic about it as he had been the first time he had been asked. As Takumi enthusiastically gave his contact details to him, Gii was struck by the realisation that this really must be one of his first big gigs. None of the other musicians had reacted like that; they had all been well known enough to be unbothered by such a thing. He had had plenty of other musicians affiliated with himself play these kinds of things, and while this kind of reaction was commonplace afterwards, it was rare to happen in the moment.

Just like Mr Harrington had, this man also seemed to want for the conversation to go on for longer. “So I learned the violin in my youth myself, but I don’t think I was ever as good as you got,” he laughed, and Gii took this break to translate it to Takumi. Then he continued, “perhaps if I had continued to play, I would have gotten to your level. Do you think that would have been possible? How long did it take you to get so good?”

What was it with people asking that today? Turning to Takumi again, Gii translated and was prepared this time for another vague answer.

This time though, it was slightly different. It was subtle, but it seemed that Takumi was a little more tense than he had been before, and it seemed strange to Gii that such a seemingly innocent question would create such an effect. Perhaps this was why he had been so tense before… probably Gii would never know.

_“I don’t want to answer that,”_ Takumi said, turning to Gii. It took Gii a second to realise that instead of being an actual response to the question, Takumi was talking to him, asking him to get him out of this.

Given that Takumi actually seemed upset, Gii couldn’t help but feel really bad (even if Takumi’s sad face was adorable). He almost seemed to be responding to these questions in the same way that he had responded to people trying to touch him, and Gii silently wondered if those two things were in some way connected.

Still, he wiped those thoughts from his mind, reminding himself that he still had a job to do. What to tell him? “Uuh, Mr Hayama says that he took most of his life to get so good,” he recycled the answer from the last time someone asked that question. Hopefully it sounded casual, and not like he was pulling the answer out of his ass.

It seemed to work, as the man laughed a little as though it had been the answer he was looking for. “Alright, well I’d better get going,” and he made a move to walk past them, probably to the doors (since most of the people here had gone already).

Everything had been going fine – until the man made his fatal mistake. As he passed them, he went just a tad too close to Takumi, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

When Takumi flinched away, taking a full two steps away from him and almost backing into Gii, it was finally clear why Takumi had this rule. Ordinarily in this kind of situation it would have been Gii’s instinct to catch him, to steady him after he had stumbled. Unfortunately, since it was very clearly impossible – it probably would have only made things worse – Gii’s hands flailed in the air, unable to help but still following the instinct to do _something._

Without even having noticed the effect he had had, the man continued to walk blindly out of the room.

While Takumi was audibly hyperventilating, Gii had no idea what to do. He couldn’t comfort him with touch, so he settled for using his voice. _“Hey… everything’s going to be okay… you’re alright…”_

What he actually said had to just sort of be soothing nonsense – he had no real idea what the issue was, so he couldn’t tailor his attempts at comfort to it. In a way it reminded him of his mom comforting him as a child after a nightmare or a bad fall, the soft words holding no substance and yet making the world seem a better place.

Still, it seemed to be working – eventually his breathing slowed back down, and Gii breathed a sigh of relief.

Takumi said nothing once he was back to normal, merely giving Gii a small smile – it was okay though, he could feel the sincerity in it.

Standing up straight from his slouch, Gii gave himself a little shake. He had almost forgotten where he was, so distracted by what had been going on, and it seemed almost odd to be launched back into that other situation.

In the time that this had gone on, more people had left, and yet there were still people around to come bother them. Gii could see a woman out of the corner of his eye making her way towards them, and the braced himself to translate.

"I heard you earlier, my good man, and I have to say you must be very gifted in your craft." The woman stopped by to say. It took Gii a moment to figure out how this could be worded to Takumi. Eventually he managed it, and Takumi’s reaction was overly humble for his genuine talent.

“ _Ah, it’s not a gift, I just practiced a lot_ ,” Takumi explained, and Gii relayed this back to her regardless of his own thoughts on the sentiment. Gii knew all about what it was like to work hard at something – his whole life had been working hard for this position, after all – and he knew full well that it was so much easier to be good at something if you began from a place of being good at it to begin with. There was no two ways about it, Takumi was definitely talented.

When she walked away, not seeming to be bothered about saying anything else (which frankly was relieving; Gii was beginning to realise just how tiring translating was, especially at 2am), the two of them were left alone together.

Gii began to think about what he had been considering with regards to talent vs hard work. Should he tell him that? Would it be too creepy? Gii glanced over at Takumi, unsure. The other man was still looking around the room, perhaps not knowing what to say to Gii…

It occurred to him that there was a good chance that he might not get to see Takumi again (at least, not any time soon) and not talking to him at all would only make the chances of that even higher.

Screwing up his courage, Gii took a deep breath and began to speak. “ _Hey, so I think you’re –“_

Unfortunately, Takumi had started speaking at exactly the same time. “ _Saki-san, I hate to say it but_ –“ He also cut himself off when he realised that Gii was also talking.

They both laughed awkwardly, sort of waiting for the other to continue. When neither did, Gii prompted Takumi to go.

He squirmed a little under Gii’s gaze, keeping his own fixed somewhere on the floor and fiddling with the bottom of his jumper as he spoke. _“Well, um, all these people are asking me to come to other events, and I… well I wouldn’t be able to get around them without someone to translate, and… and I can’t help but think that it would be difficult without you there. You’ve done a really good job today to help me and I wanted to know if you would be willing to do it again. For the other events, I mean.”_ He looked up at Gii worriedly. “ _Not that you have to. If you can’t, or if you don’t want to that’s fine too.”_

Gii blinked. Well, that hadn’t been what he was expecting to hear. So… so that meant that Takumi wanted to see him again? Like, actively, not just ‘well I guess we’ll see each other sometime’, but ‘when can we meet up again?’.

“ _I…”_ he began, unsure what to say, or even if he would be able to make it work. “ _Of course I’ll do it_ ,” he found himself saying. He rarely took risks like this, but sometimes they were very much worth it. Gii hoped that this would be one of these times.

The other’s face lit up at this. “ _You will? Oh thank goodness, that makes me feel so much better_.”

Just the fact that this man wanted to see him again was enough to make Gii do an internal happy dance. The possible beginnings of his interest in Takumi had been piqued with this meeting, and regardless of his personal reservations about having to translate more, he would do it in order to get to see this intriguing new friend more.

Furthermore, the fact that after today he would be entirely capable of choosing another, more experienced translator for the future gigs, and yet he chose Gii anyway had planted a small seed of hope in Gii. He knew that his attempts at being an interpreter had been poorer than he would have liked – his inner perfectionist made him well aware of that – and yet Takumi _still chose him_.

It was an awesome feeling.

Working through his elation, Gii fought back the grin that wanted to creep its way across his face. In order to pull attention away from that, and because nobody else had come to talk to them, Gii suggested, “ _hey, maybe we should move out of the way_ ,” and motioned for them to walk over to the wall, out of the way where less people would bother them. They had been slowly moving that way anyway, and so it was not so unusual to simply go all the way there.

Despite the fact that Takumi was completely allowed to leave by now, his job was over, he readily agreed and followed Gii over to the wooden panelled walls.

“ _So… How’s Japan? It’s been a while since I was there_ ,” Gii started things off light.

Takumi laughed a little. “ _Well it was raining when I left yesterday, so it’s… moist, I guess_?”

To be fair, Gii didn’t know what other kind of response he had been expecting. Nevertheless, it caught him off guard, making him let out a burst of laughter in surprise. “ _Touché_ ,” he chuckled. “ _But still though, what’s it been like, growing up in Japan_?”

Takumi frowned. “ _I… I don’t know? It’s been normal for me, so I guess I never really thought about it?”_

Gii nodded. “ _Yeah, I guess that’s true… I’ve always found it interesting to consider what it might have been like if I had spent more time in Japan during my teenage years.”_

Takumi giggled. _“Really? What do you imagine it might have been like?”_

_“Um,”_ thinking over the many times he had considered this over the years, Gii selected the most relevant one _. “well going to a Japanese high school would certainly have been a different experience, although I can’t say for sure whether it would have actually changed my intelligence or career I don’t know. I can’t bring myself to regret my American upbringing because of this_.”

Takumi cocked his head to the side. “ _That’s a good point… I wonder what kind of school you might have gone to.”_

Snorting, Gii replied, “ _whichever one cost the most money, I suspect_.”

“ _You mean your parents wouldn’t have taken your feelings into account_?” Takumi asked, eyes wide with trepidation.

Gii shook his head slowly. “ _Not… entirely, no, but the quality of the school would have come foremost. And besides, I would have had to go to a boarding school in order to live in Japan, what with all my family being over here in America_.”

Takumi grinned. “ _Ah, maybe you’d have gone to a school like mine then. I went to a boarding school that was fairly prestigious_.”

“ _Can you imagine if we’d gone to school together_?” Gii laughed to himself at the thought.

“ _That’s a really weird thought_ ,” Takumi laughed too, and the two of them stood there giggling for a minute.

Once they had calmed down, Gii asked another question. “ _So obviously you’re a violinist, but I take it that this isn’t all you do?”_

Takumi looked a little shy. “ _Well, actually I don’t normally do this kind of thing. I’m a teacher, actually.”_

“ _Oh? That’s interesting. What_ –“

Gii jumped when he felt a hand land on his shoulders. Takumi giggled a little at him, and, slightly embarrassed, Gii span around to see who it was that had interrupted them. “Dad!” He automatically spoke in English, and breathed a sigh of relief that there was nothing malicious going on. The other man looked a little uneasy, but Gii put it down to being tired and busy.

“What are you up to, son?” His dad asked, responding in English in turn.

Gii put an innocent smile on his face. “Just talking to Hayama-san here.”

His dad squinted. “I don’t remember seeing that name on the guest list.” Well that was a weird thing to say, especially since Gii had been the one to make the guest list in the first place.

Putting it down to exhaustion again, Gii pretended like it wasn’t strange at all and smiled. “That’s because he was the violinist today. Did you not enjoy his playing?”

He had been entirely expecting for this to placate his father. He would laugh, then, Gii would laugh, and it wouldn’t be awkward any more.

Instead, his father’s face went pale, and still, as though he had just heard some very bad news. “The violinist, eh?” He stared at Takumi intensely. Gii felt a little sorry for him – the man probably had understood little of their conversation, and may have no idea why he was being stared at. Gii couldn’t even offer him an explanation, not understanding the situation himself.

“Yeah… Did you like the music?” Gii tried, wondering if that had perhaps been it. Had it simply not been up to standard?

This seemed to only confuse his father, however. “What?” He frowned. “Yes, yes, the music was fine,” he said dismissively. It didn’t stop him staring though, and Gii shared some confused looks with Takumi as they waited for Gii’s father to explain himself. Takumi took a few sips of his glass of water, presumably just for something to do, and in many ways Gii was jealous of him for having that out.

He never did stop glaring at Takumi though, and eventually turned away from his examining of Takumi. “Your mother and I will be leaving shortly,” he said. “You may leave soon too, if you wish. Just make sure you let someone know that you’ve left.”

Without another word of explanation, he then walked away.

“ _What was all that about_?” Takumi asked cautiously.

“ _I… That was my father. He was just letting me know that he’s going to be leaving soon_ ,” Gii told him.

Neither of them addressed the strange behaviour of Gii’s father. “ _Talking of leaving, I should probably also head off.”_ Takumi yawned, and it was the most adorable thing he’d ever seen.

Gii coughed to cover his distraction. “ _Yeah, that sounds like a good plan, it’s quite late_.”

Despite what he’d just said, Takumi made no move to leave at all.

Watching him begin to fiddle with the bottom of his jumper, Gii waited for Takumi to say… whatever it was that he had in mind.

“ _Um… shall I contact you when I find out if I get any more gigs here in New York then_?” Takumi asked timidly.

Gii raised an eyebrow. “ _Well yeah, I said I would, didn’t I_?”

Takumi nodded. “ _I know, but I just wanted to make sure_.” He continued to squirm. For a second Gii wanted to reply, to say something more, to make it clear that there was no way he was going to miss out on seeing him again – but before he could, Takumi spoke again.

“ _Look, I… I just wanted to say that I’m thankful for everything that happened today_.” He continued to fidget, and Gii smiled to see it.

“ _No need to thank me_ ,” Gii said gently. He wasn’t about to ask for him to clarify what he meant by that – he was pretty sure he knew, and for at least one of the reasons he was pretty sure that Takumi didn’t want to talk about it.

“ _I should…”_ Takumi coughed, “ _I should go get my things and leave_.” Gii nodded. “ _I can’t wait to see you again… okay bye._ ” Takumi fled, making his way quickly in the direction of his dressing room, not leaving Gii any time to reply. He could have gone after Takumi… but it was enough to know that Takumi wanted to see him again.

And, more importantly, that they would definitely see each other again.

Hopefully soon.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who needs consistancy in your chapter lengths amirite? Anyway, this chapter would have been even longer, but i decided to push some of the scenes that were going to be in it into the next chapter (plus it would have taken even longer to write). Anyway, enjoy!

Three days later found Gii standing in his home office staring at his old Japanese grammar books. He hadn’t had need to touch them since he finished college – his use of Japanese had been minimal outside of his family, and with them he could get away with forgetting a word or two. They had sat there on the bookshelf of his office at home for years, untouched.

There they sat on his bookshelf, taking up a whole shelf of their own. Despite having grown up with Japanese, and considering himself pretty fluent in the language, his parents had insisted that if he wasn’t going to go to high school in Japan then he needed to study the language. It had been fairly easy for him, although it had been a shame to turn something he found fun before into a chore of a subject.

What had happened last week had reminded him just how rusty he was at it though. He had become accustomed to speaking English at home and at work, with little time to talk to anyone in Japanese. He really hadn’t realised just how bad he had got at it.

Well… if he was going to be helping Takumi out more, he would need this. There was no way he was going to go through intense translating again without a better vocabulary.

Sighing, he pulled one of the books down and examined it, looking at the cover art and flipping through the worn, yellowed pages. It felt like he was admitting defeat, in a way, to know that he wasn’t as good at Japanese as he should be.

Scanning through the most basic books, Gii was reminded of his childhood.

Although he had refused to stay in Japan for his high school schooling, quite a lot of his childhood had been spent in Japan, mostly visiting family. It held fond memories for him still – whether that was a good thing or not he didn’t know.

While with Takumi he had been brought to the train of thought that he had sometimes pondered in the past – genuinely, what would it have been like if he had agreed to let his parents send him to school in Japan? His main concern at the time had been the fact that none of his friends would be there in Japan, and for a fourteen year old boy it would have been the end of the world to be moved to an entirely different school.

Besides (although he would never have admitted it at the time) he had been very nervous at the idea of going to school in a different country. His entire education to that point had been in America, and he had become accustomed to that, plus his extra tutoring. At that point he had been fairly proficient in Japanese, but probably not to the level which would have been needed to understand school in Japanese, not with all of the terminology needed. It had intimidated him to the point of refusing to go no matter what his parents attempted to bribe him with.

Not to mention the fact that he hadn’t been able to actually tell his parents any of these things. His father had been particularly strict during his childhood, insisting that Gii remain confident at all times, as befitting the future leader of their company. It didn’t matter to him whether Gii felt that confidence honestly, only that a show of strength was there. Gii had managed to do that in his refusal to go to Japan, and to this day part of Gii was sure that it had made his father respect him in some ways.

Flipping through the book, Gii was sure that he knew all of this. It was all the most basic things – even when he had been taking lessons, he had known this book was beneath him. Actually he didn’t know why he owned it to begin with. Chucking it behind him in the general direction of his bin, he made a mental note to have a clear out of the books he didn’t need. There was no point in keeping his bookshelf cluttered when he could be buying more useful books about business and the like.

Grabbing a book he was sure was more advanced, he sat down in his desk chair to study it a little. Perhaps he shouldn’t be so relaxed here – he kicked his feet up onto the desk and loosened his tie – but it was home, it didn’t matter. The chances of his mom coming in and scolding him for putting his feet on the furniture were low, and anyway she’d likely be more distracted by the sight of him brushing up on his Japanese. She’d been bugging him to for the last three years or so, ever since he stopped his formal lessons in favour or studying for his final exams.

How long it had been that he sat there and read the book he couldn’t say. All he knew was that at one point he looked up and it was dark out – he didn’t remember seeing so much as a sunset. Still, he still felt motivated even after hours of reading. When he knew that there was no exam at the end of it, no punishment if he didn’t do enough, studying like this seemed less like a chore and a lot more fun. Not that he wasn’t tired – he had had a full day of work before this, after all – but he was very much still willing to continue.

He read on, doing his best to ignore the way his eyelids felt heavy and threatened to close every so often.

**

Gii awoke and immediately sat up.

He hadn’t even registered falling asleep, and it felt odd to him to wake up in his home office instead of his bed. His chair, usually so soft and comfortable, dug into his back in ways he couldn’t have imagined possible, and his ass was completely numb. So much for expensive, high end chairs.

Frowning as he rubbed his eyes, he tried to remember his dream. It had been about… something from his childhood? A memory of a childhood friend in Japan?

Mentally he grasped at the details, but they faded from his mind faster than he could recall what had happened. It had left him feeling bittersweet though – perhaps it was a memory best left untouched.

Picking the grammar book up from where it had fallen to the floor, Gii dusted it off a little and placed it on the desk. By this point his parents would almost certainly be wondering where he was – it wasn’t unusual for him to be late for dinner, but this was a bit excessive.

For a while all thoughts of Japan and Japanese were abandoned in favour of food. Abandoning his work for now, he made his way through the corridors and down their excessively wide staircase. Even once downstairs, he had to make his way through many rooms to reach the kitchen, which was at the back of the house overlooking the garden.

His parents weren’t around at that particular time, which made things a little easier; he would have no-one to explain himself to.

It wasn’t until he had eaten, and was full and satisfied, that his thoughts turned to that dream again. There had been something hauntingly familiar to it, but Gii simply couldn’t put his finger on what exactly it was.

It put him on edge a little, and he did his best to put it out of his mind. It would do him no good to dwell on that which gave him the heebie-jeebies, and if he couldn’t remember, well there was nothing he could do about that.

As he sat on his bed, contemplating life as he did sometimes, his thoughts abruptly turned to Takumi. Why it was that he was associating Takumi with his dream he didn’t know, but it wasn’t necessarily an unwelcome change – in fact, Gii was much more happy to marvel over Takumi’s wide and expressive eyes than he was to feel sad over his dream.

He was just so good looking, and he’d been so kind… Gii could feel the slight blush pooling in his cheeks. For once he didn’t try to get rid of it – he was alone, it didn’t matter because no-one but him would know.

Perhaps it felt a little creepy to be crushing on someone he barely knew, but Gii’s thoughts were already spiralling into fantasies about what might have happened if he’d made a move that night.

That hope which had been curled tight in his chest ever since Takumi had asked him to interpret for him again soon began to unfurl – the knowledge that they would see one another sometime soon.

For now Gii ignored the fact that he had little to no chance of forming a relationship with Takumi, and couldn’t help but hope that Takumi might reach out sooner than anticipated. He almost certainly had Gii’s contact details… It was entirely possible that he could talk to Gii before then.

Really he couldn’t wait to talk to Takumi more, to get to know him better.

No matter which happened first, Gii was determined to pick up the pace on his Japanese and provide an even better service for Takumi next time.

Maybe if he was even better at it Takumi would be even more likely to talk to him more. That would be great.

**

“ _What’s for lunch_?” Gii asked as he walked into the kitchen the next day, nearly blinded by the reflections off all the chrome in the room.. He was starving after a whole morning of procrastinating doing his actual work by skim reading some of the light novels he had forgotten he owned. It had actually been a surprise when he had come across it on the bottom shelf of his bookcase, hidden behind some boxes.

Not that it was the most sophisticated reading, but it was certainly interesting to do a serious amount of reading in a language other than English for once. Even though he hadn’t done it in a while, the books themselves were familiar, the plots coming back to him as he read through them. It was fun, another reminder of his childhood, a trip down memory lane.

And, of course, assisting him on his quest to improve his Japanese.

His mom seemed surprised that he spoke in Japanese, jumping around from where she stood at the counter making sandwiches. “ _Giichi, honey, you startled me_!” She exclaimed, clutching a hand to her chest. “ _We’re just having sandwiches, you know how your father’s on this health kick at the moment_.”

Gii nodded, moving closer to give her a quick hug. “ _Sounds good. Are we eating together_?”

His mom nodded. _"Sure, if that's what you want. Your father is working though, he's in his study and the last time I saw him he seemed pretty busy. You can take his plate to him if you want though_." She held out a plate with a brown bread cheese sandwich on it, and Gii wrinkled his nose at the sight - if he was offered the same one, he might have to decline and make his own lunch for once.

It didn't surprise him that his mom picked up on his obvious distaste, however - she laughed at his expression, reassuring him that, " _I'm not going to make you eat one too, don't worry_." She gestured at the ingredients behind her. " _Look, there are plenty of other things for you to choose from. Now off you go_." She patted his back and Gii obediently set off for his dad's study.

On the opposite side of the house, Gii was wondering what had possessed him to agree to bring the lunch over. It was clear to him now that his mom simply hadn't wanted to make the journey herself through the long corridors of their large house; but still, that didn't mean Gii had to enjoy it himself. There were simply too many stairs to climb - Gii was considering asking if they could move simply to get away from doing so much walking.

By the time Gii actually reached the room in question, he was panting. He had always thought of himself as fairly physically fit, but somehow this had completely wiped him out, totally stripping the energy from him to the point where he had to lean against the wall for a second to catch his breath.

Gii was a polite son - he knocked on the door to the study instead of just barging in (this habit may also have been the effect of being shouted at many times for entering without knocking). After a couple of silent seconds, during which Gii wondered exactly how angry he would be entitled to get if he had walked all this way only to not deliver the damn sandwich at all, a terse voice finally called out, "come in!"

Peeking a head around the thick wooden door, Gii started off by showing the plate of food. " _Mom made you lunch_ ," he said, hoping that he wasn't interrupting anything important.

Fortunately his father wasn't in the middle of a call or anything, and he actually looked sort of pleased to see Gii. " _Ah, thank you_ ," he said, appearing less confused than his mom had when he spoke Japanese. " _Give your mom my thanks as well_."

Clearly there was to be no time for chit chat - probably just as well, since Gii was starving still and had yet to have his own sandwich. giving a small theatrical bow, Gii backed out of the room, gaining himself a head nod in return as he did.

Well at least his father hadn't got angry. Presumably he was as hungry as Gii was - and thinking about it again only made his stomach rumble harder.

Gii hurried back over to the kitchen, nearly slipping a few times on the wooden floors in his haste. The only thoughts running through his mind were 'food food food', and his stomach growled loudly again several times. It truly was a nightmare, and Gii hoped that his mom had finished making whatever his lunch was. Truly she was a godsend on his days working from home.

Upon reaching the kitchen again, he was presented with a plate with two sandwiches on - ham this time. Much better.

His mom patted his cheek. " _Come on, let's eat in the living room_ ," she said, walking past him and leading the way across the hall into their living room. Well, it was technically the family living room, the one they used for their own use, that actually felt lived in. Not the larger, grander one which his parents used for entertaining. That had always felt way too stuffy for Gii, the fear of spilling something on the cream sofas and carpets there much too high.

Sitting them down on the one facing the tv, his mom unmuted the show she already had playing. It was a Japanese drama of some kind, the sort aimed at middle aged women like his mom. It wasn't to his tastes at all - yet it was in Japanese, and so part of him was riveted to it, eager to hear Japanese conversations after so long. It felt strange and yet familiar, like it had been half remembered.

His mom was clearly similarly engaged, and yet he could see the odd stares she kept throwing him out of the corner of his eye.

It made him a little self-conscious, and he was suddenly more aware of the sauce dripping down his chin than he had been before. Wiping it away, he did his best to ignore his mom staring.

Well, it worked, until it became clear that she was no longer paying attention to the show, and was instead staring at him outright, cocking her head to the side as though she was thinking very hard about something.

“ _What is it_?” Gii asked eventually, unable to take it any longer. “ _Have I got something on my face_?” He rubbed his chin again, thinking that perhaps the sauce had got a little further round his face than he had thought.

His mom shrugged. “ _I just was remembering your last year of college when you began to refuse to speak Japanese with us once your lessons were over_.” She didn’t explicitly say it, but Gii knew she was asking what had caused his change of heart.

Gii shrugged. “ _Yeah, well, I guess I think differently about it now that I’m not being tested on it_.” He avoided mentioning exactly what had triggered this resurgence in his interest in Japanese – he was unsure how they would react to it, judging by his father’s reaction upon seeing him.

Laughing, his mom turned to face him properly. “ _Giichi, that was never our intention in making you learn Japanese. We just wanted to make sure that you wouldn’t forget your heritage, since you were so against going to japan itself. We never meant to make you feel bad about it, sweetie_.”

Gii chewed on his lip in thought. “ _I’m sure you didn’t_ …” he said slowly. He couldn’t exactly out and out say that part of him was sure that the opposite was true, but he was pretty sure that some sadistic part of his parents wanted to torture him with it. Just a little bit.

“ _Not that I’m unhappy that you’re back on it_ ,” his mom reassured him. “ _I’m all for it_.”

Gii nodded, and stood up. Picking up both of their empty plates, he said, “ _well I’m off to work some more… see you at dinner_?”

He didn’t really wait around for an answer, instead heading over to the kitchen to put the dishes back. Glad that he had got away with it – for now – he hurried back over to his office, eager to forget about the awkwardness of this all.

Really he had no-one other to blame than himself for this. If he hadn’t made the decision to brush up on his Japanese he wouldn’t be going through this.

Oh well – hopefully it would be worth it.

**

Gii took in a deep breath, and gazed up at the glass restaurant doors in front of him.

Everything in him told him to run, to leave, that this would turn out to be no good.

To be fair, based on past experience that wasn’t such a crazy reaction.

Somehow, despite his terrible mood, the weather had the audacity to be good. There was a cool breeze, but the sun was shining brightly, making the world seem slightly better than it was.

Breathing out and taking in another breath, Gii did his best to remember that he knew this restaurant well. He had held countless business meetings and deals here, as well as it hosting many family outings. The staff here knew him by name due to the frequency of his visits, and he appreciated that kind of service. All in all, it was a place he enjoyed being.

And yet.

Heart race increasing with every step, Gii walked cautiously towards those ornately decorated doors. The doorman jumped to pull them open them for him, and Gii smiled appreciatively at him as he walked by. He didn’t recognise this one; he must be new, Gii thought to himself.

Now, where had his parents said she would be sat…? Pulling his phone out of his jacket pocket, Gii scrolled though his text messages with his mom, trying to find the ones where they had talked about this date. They were quite far back, past all of her reminders for him to eat, since this date had been arranged quite far in advance. Gii hadn’t been happy about it back then either, but there was little he could do about it.

 **Mom** [16:07]  
She’s such a nice girl, I just know you’ll love her.

 **Me** [16:29]  
don’t you think it’s a little early to be talking about love

 **Mom** [17:15]  
Not at all! She would be a wonderful asset to the company.

 **Me** [17:17]  
sure mom, if you say so

 **Mom** [18:01]  
You two will meet at the restaurant at 12:30. She says she will be in the back corner, probably in a red dress.

Then, a later text from earlier today.

 **Mom** [10:44]  
Good luck honey!

Cringing, Gii slipped his phone back into his jacket pocket and straightened out his suit. How long could he plausibly get away with ‘brushing off’ his coat? He wondered. Well he was currently testing that hypothesis by doing just that – quite long it would appear. Was he quite obviously stalling? Absolutely, but he didn’t really care.

Sighing, Gii acknowledged that yeah, he was beginning to get some weird looks. Ignoring them, he pretended like everything was normal, and made his way to the back of the restaurant.

It would be helpful that his mystery date would be in a red dress – but at the same time, it was so… gaudy? Bright? Something about it seemed like she was trying too hard for a lunch date.

The low lighting of the restaurant didn’t help him in his search, but, to her credit, there she was at the back of the room, sat in a curved booth, almost hidden away from sight of the rest of the patrons. No wonder it had taken so long for him to find her.

Time to act.

Putting on his most winning smile, Gii walked confidently up to the table. The movement caught the attention of the woman sat there, and she looked up at him, giving him a fake looking smile in return. Well, he was hardly one to judge. He was doing the exact same thing.

"Hello there," the woman spoke, her voice low and sultry. it was completely cringy, and Gii did his best to keep that instinctive reaction off his face.

Clearing his throat, he replied, "hi." Shit, that was way too awkward.

Doing his best to cover up his nerves, he busied himself with sitting down, and getting himself comfortable. If he was going to endure this he may as well feel good while doing it, right?

Then it occurred to him that he still didn't know her name. Fuck, was he meant to know her name? He frantically tried to recall the messages he had shared with his mom about this date, and he couldn't remember at all whether her name had been mentioned at any point.

Giving up on worrying about it, Gii tried to deflect it by introducing himself in the hopes that she would give her own name in return, even if she thought he might already know it. "My name is -"

That was as far as he got before he was interrupted by a giggle. "I know who you are, silly," the other women was amused. "You're everywhere on the news, you're Giichi Saki."

Oh no. Had Gii just set himself up for an afternoon of being called his full name? That just reminded him of being reprimanded by his parents, no matter how many other businessmen called him by his full name every day.

Before he could even attempt to correct her (plenty of people were fine with calling him Gii instead, it just took him asking) she already had moved along in the conversation.

"How are you?" The woman asked, clearly eager to keep a conversation going.

Gii felt a little bad that she had got roped into his issues, and decided to throw her a bone. "I'm good, thank you," he replied politely. "What about yourself?"

She looked very pleased to get a good response from him, and launched into her own triage of explanations on how she was. "Well, I'm actually not doing so great today - first when I woke up I'd run out of my favourite moisturiser, so I had to get one of the servants to run out and pick up some more, and by the time she'd got back I was already running late, so I had to do my make up super rushed, and I didn't even realise until I got to work that my eyeliner was totally crooked the whole time I was in the car, and I was super embarrassed! I had to go into the restroom to fix it up because I just knew I'd feel terrible all day if I didn't make it better. I tried to tell myself, ‘Madison, you sort yourself out, but then my whole day at work was still thrown off because of it. I swear, this date is the only thing that's making that better." She batted her eyelashes at him, her flirting completely obvious.

Gii couldn't tell if she wanted to date him for him at all, or if she just wanted to get at his inheritance. It was probably the second, which really just made him sad.

Nodding awkwardly, Gii pretended like he could relate to her problems in the slightest. "Oh, that's... that's too bad."

"I know right? Oh! I saw about that gala you held a few weeks ago! It was so great, I wish I could have been there but my daddy had a conference out of town, so we all had to go along and support him. I'm sure you understand, but..." She shifted slightly closer to him over the table, "I wish we could have met even sooner, you know?"

Her intentions were fairly clear, and by intentions he meant her breasts. Her boobs were pushed up by the motion of her having her arms crossed under them as she rested on the table. It was obviously meant to draw attention to them, and if Gii had been attracted to women in any capacity he was sure that it would have entirely distracted him from anything else.

As it was, it certainly distracted him, but in the most unpleasant of ways. Doing his best to keep his eyes trained on her face - anywhere other than her boobs, really - Gii said, "oh, thank you. It was a good night. Really it was a case of the more the merrier - we had so many guests, I might not have had time to speak to you even if you had come." He smiled at her gently so as to not make her think that he meant he would have gone out of his way to not speak to her if she had been a guest that night.

Then he was reminded again of the highlight of that night; watching Takumi in his element, playing his violin, talking to Takumi, watching him be praised by the other guests as much as he deserved. It served as a reminder of exactly why women weren't his type, why he didn't like going on these dates.

Why he really needed to tell his parents to stop trying to set him up with women.

Then his mind began to run wild. In his imagination, it was not Madison who sat before him in this gaudy, overpriced, restaurant, but sweet Takumi. Gii could almost see how he would gape at the decorations, how Gii would enjoy spoiling him, treating him to the food they served here.

It was a much more enjoyable date, and it was entirely fictional.

A bitter taste in Gii's mouth, the waiter chose this moment to arrive. "May I take your order?" He asked, a pleasant customer service smile on his face.

If Gii hadn't been so familiar with the menu in this place he might have floundered at this point, neither he nor his date having picked up the menus which sat in the centre of the table between them.

Madison  seemed not so fortunate, sending Gii probably the first genuine expression yet this date, one of helpless floundering.

Taking pity on her, Gii quickly ordered for both of them. Perhaps he would come across to the waiter as a controlling date, but really it was less than she deserved for not bothering to look at the menu.

Once the waiter had gone, Madison’s sultry demeanour returned, changing her once again into someone whom Gii had little interest in knowing.

"So... I heard that you're going to be taking over from your father in a few years..." she said, shuffling round the curved leather seat of their booth a little. How could she have known that? It was something that Gii and his father had discussed a few times, but no definitive plans had been made yet for his father's retirement.

"Aah..." Gii said, trying to come up with the right words. "I... I can't really say, I don't think any of us know for sure when the handover will happen... I wouldn’t want to tell you anything in case it doesn't happen...." he chuckled nervously.

Madison slid closer still. "I heard from my mom that they want you to be married when the takeover happens... you know I think they're right, someone who has that much responsibility on their shoulders really needs someone who can support them... that they can rely on..." She rested a hand on his left shoulder, squeezing it slightly as though the 'responsibility on his shoulders' was physical.

Gii did his best to move away a little; not that it was really possible, he was right by the edge of the seat anyway. "Aaah... well I suppose so, yes, but I haven't been able to find anyone like that yet." He laughed humourlessly. She couldn't have known (or could she?) about the agreement that he had with his parents, that he would get married before being allowed to take over the company. It was one thing that he knew his parents would never compromise on, and yet it was something that he wasn’t all too keen on. It was the reasoning for these incessant dates; his parents doing their best to make him meet the 'right' girl.

So far that hadn't exactly happened.

Most of the dates had ended in him politely pretending like he might call them back, and then promptly deleting their numbers from his phone and making an excuse to his parents as to why he couldn't date them. He felt bad, but most of them were about as subtle as this particular date was being. They wanted him for his money and nothing more, they liked the idea of being a trophy wife and never working a day in their lives.

To an extent he could see the appeal of that lifestyle - and yet it meant that he had nothing in common with these women. It was rather sad, really.

Then he noticed that Madison wasn't actually looking at him, but rather at a distant point over his shoulder. Her expression was still the same, that of trying to cajole him into wanting to marry her, but something in her eyes betrayed something else - concern? Fear?

Covertly Gii tried to see what she was looking at.

There was a man with sunglasses sat on a table by himself on the opposite end of the restaurant, conveniently positioned so that he had an excellent view of their table. He appeared to be watching them, and if Gii weren't so used to being watched by others a lot for who he was, it might have unnerved him slightly.

As it was it was still odd - presumably he was connected to Madison in some way? An ex, perhaps? Or even a current lover - parents in business could be pushy about these things even with their children already involved with someone else.

Looking back at Madison, the expression of worry seemed only to intensify - and so did her efforts to seduce him. She pushed her arms closer to her torso, effectively pushing her boobs into having extreme cleavage and putting them very close to Gii.

Gii did his best to lean away from her without making it look weird, although he didn't think he was really succeeding.

"You know, after this we could try to get somewhere alone together... get to know one another a little better," she purred, and Gii mentally gagged. The idea of doing that with a woman... well, maybe when he got married he would be forced to for the sake of having children, but there was little other reason he might concede to it.

Then it occurred to Gii that the mysterious man might be there for another reason.

For the first few dates his parents had set him up with, they had made sure someone was watching him, to make sure that he didn't completely blow them off and make a mockery of their family. By now they trusted him not to, but if this woman was unused to the world of dating in this way...

Narrowing his eyes, Gii tried to look at Madison with fresh eyes. “Do you actually want to be here?” Gii asked discerningly. While she might be completely genuine, there was always the chance that…

Madison’s eyes widened. “W-what? No, o-of course I –“ For the first time she stumbled over her words, a second of fear flashing through her carefully calculated mask of overt sexuality.

Not for more than a second – but that was enough to tell Gii all he needed to know. He leaned in closer. Eyes flicking over to the secretive man, Gii did his best to look as though he was saying something intimate, rather than, “it’s okay, I don’t want to be here either.”

A moment of hesitation hit him – what if he had been wrong and he’d just massively insulted her? – but the way she slumped against the seat immediately after in relief proved his theory right.

“Oh thank god.” She sounded about as fed up as Gii was with this whole thing. She rubbed a hand over her face, regardless of the heavy make up slathered there. “My dad made me come to this, even though I begged him not to.” She made a face. “Not that I don’t like you, but I’d like to choose my own boyfriend, you know?”

“I get that more than you know.” Gii was impressed he managed to keep a straight face. Well… maybe not a _straight_ one…

Thankfully she didn’t seem to notice, and smiled up at him – genuinely this time. “I’m glad you understand,” she said, looking down as she began to fiddle with the tablecloth. “I was worried you might get mad if I didn’t seem really into you… I’ve had a couple of dates like these where they seemed to think I had to really like them, no matter what.”

Gii knew exactly the kind of people she was talking about, had been ‘friends’ with them in college. He nodded. “No, of course not,” he said gently. “I know we can’t challenge our parents that much, but we can make the best of a bad situation, eh?”

By the time the waiter arrived with their food, the two of them were becoming fast friends. Gii might not be sexually attracted to women, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be good friends with them. Given their similar situations, Gii was pretty sure that they could make a good friendship simply by complaining about their parents.

At least when his parents asked how this date went, he could honestly tell them that they thought they would be better off as friends.

Although it did mean that he would have to be subjected to this kind of thing innumerably more times until he had had enough and gave in to marrying one of them. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too terrible.

Maybe they would be nice enough to act as his beard, and allow him to maybe pursue a relationship with a man at the same time? (He refused to let himself imagine that it could maybe be Takumi, although that would be wonderful.) It was something he had known ever since he knew he would have to get married to a woman, that no matter what, that much is what he would be reduced to having in a relationship that actually mattered to him.

**

Needing to take a pee break in the middle of work was irritating. Somehow Gii always managed to be interrupted at whatever time he was most in the zone, but unfortunately the call of nature could not be ignored.

After doing his business, Gii loitered in the bathroom for a little while longer. It was only when he was removed from his immediate work that he ever realised just how long he had been sat down at his desk for, and he tried to make the best of the rare moments which he allowed himself to relax in.

Gripping the bench the sinks were in, Gii stared at himself in the mirror. He was alone in the bathroom, it didn’t matter if he acted a little oddly.

Did he look a little tired? It was so impossible to tell on your own face, not when you saw it day in day out.

“ _Get it together_ ,” he muttered to himself. What he should be worrying about was this latest deal, not how tired he was. That was unimportant.

“ _Back to the old grind_ ,” he said – and then realised that between his first line and the second that some other employees had walked in and were looking at him strangely.

Years of practice was the only thing preventing him from blushing. To be caught by his inferiors talking to himself in a language they didn’t know – he must have looked slightly insane.

Quickly he fled the scene, keeping his face as straight as possible. The only thing worse than making a fool of himself in front of his employees was admitting that that had happened. He had to just pretend, keep calm and show no fear. Like facing off wild animals.

No. He refused to be embarrassed by this. It wasn’t weird… people were allowed to talk to themselves on occasion, he shouldn’t need to be worried about that.

Just maybe not in public places.

**

Two weeks later Gii had read though a significant amount of his books.

Honestly he had forgotten just how many he owned. It did make sense, given how long he had studied it for, and yet some part of him had forgotten all the hours he had spend buying various textbooks and workbooks for it.

Only about a quarter of the harder books were left unread. To be fair, a lot of those which had been read were well below Gii’s level, even with his lack of practice in the last few years. He knew full well that getting through these last few ten or so would take much longer, give that they were much more advanced, and may finally contain aspects of the language that he had completely forgotten or was unfamiliar with.

The whole process had been fairly peaceful and enjoyable, with Gii spending his evenings and free time quickly studying a little bit more, adding to his repertoire with every session. It had been much better than he remembered it being as a child, and it had really made Gii think again more about what it might have been like to be in Japan for school, to know all this stuff instinctively.

He had actually grown accustomed to speaking Japanese around the house as well. His parents had done it for years, and it wasn’t like he had never done it ever, but just out of habit and convenience he mostly stuck to English. His parents could understand it perfectly fine, and he could think in it more easily, so why shouldn’t he?

At least, that had always been his reasoning.

Two weeks of mainly speaking – and trying to think – in Japanese had completely changed that. His parents seemed to have been enjoying it, although he had also garnered a few more weird looks for it.

Gii found himself reading one of his grammar books while he was supposed to be working. He was allowed to take breaks sometimes – and anyway, he was doing something which was technically productive, so it counted, right?

Still, maybe he looked a little too relaxed, too much like he was having fun – which was why when his dad walked through the door and saw him like that, he seemed a little irritated, judging by the frown that wrinkled up his face as he took Gii’s appearance in. So maybe he had his tie undone, and maybe his shoes had been kicked off, and maybe he’d run his hand through his hair a few times and messed it up. That wasn’t a reason to be told off, was it?

Closing the office door behind him, his dad squinted at him. " _Are you... are you still on this Japanese kick_?" He asked incredulously.

Slowly Gii nodded, unsure about where this was going. " _Yeah, I... I wanted to read up on it some more_ ," he said, trying to deflect some of his tension.

His dad seemed unappeased by this, still frowning. " _But why now_?" He asked.

Gii blinked. " _Huh_?" He said eloquently.

His dad sighed. " _Why now? Why not when you were younger, when you could have learned it more easily? Or when you were still in college, when you were getting so good at it? It just seems a little pointless now_." He sniffed, irritated.

Gii froze. Shit, what could he say? The memory of his dad getting all... weird about Takumi was still fresh in his mind, still so confusing. There was no way he could confess that that was the reason - it would likely only trigger the same response, and then he would be back to square one about everything.

Doing his best to seem calm, Gii shrugged. " _Does there have to be a specific reason? Why could I not have just had a change of heart and a kick in the backside of my motivation_?" He thought it was a pretty solid argument.

However, his dad did not seem to agree. Raising his eyebrows, he said, " _well no, i don't think so. Like I said, it's been so long - something major has to have changed, to make you think about all this in the first place. No, I don't buy it at all_." He nodded to himself, self-satisfied.

Shit. What kind of response could he give to such an astute claim? He was totally right, something big had changed, but... how to approach it?

An understanding look came over his dad's face. " _Ah, it was that kid the other night, wasn't it?"_ He looked a little lost. _"I don't remember much of that night... your mother and I had a little too much of the wine... what did he do again? Play the violin or something_?"

Gii nodded, too panicked to give a more detailed answer.

His dad shook his head. " _You had to speak some Japanese for him, right? Well, I guess that makes sense_." He clapped Gii on the shoulder. " _Keep up the good work then_."

The impromptu meeting ended on a much lighter note than it had begun, and Gii sat there, stunned, for a good few seconds after his dad walked out.

What had even gone on just now? His dad had completely guessed Gii's thoughts, which was rare now if it didn't involve a business deal of some kind, and he had done it while hardly being able to remember it?

Oh well, hopefully his parents wouldn't think much of it being Takumi which influenced him to keep going. They couldn't possibly have guessed at the reason Gii would like Takumi enough to do that, right?

No, there was no way. He shook his head to himself. He had never given them any indication of his preference for men, always politely engaging with any women his parents tried to set him up with in order to keep them happy. There were only so many ways he could hope to rebel, and he knew full well that this was one of the things that he would have to start seriously thinking about soon, especially since the dates were becoming more and more frequent. He did enjoy making his parents happy – this had been one of the things that made relearning Japanese worth it – but what would he be willing to sacrifice to do that? His own happiness?

He shook his head again, trying to rid his head of these thoughts. He had numbers to crunch, and tenses to learn. Worrying about this could wait for another day.


	5. Chapter 5

It was the little things that sometimes made these things worth it.

He’d had a thousand opportunities to do similar things over the years, and yet he never had. “ _Thank you_ ,” he said to the man.

For some reason, this only made it more poignant in his mind that he’d not spoken any Japanese to strangers other than Takumi in a long time. It made it feel all the more special. In a really weird kind of way.

Trying not to let on how weird it had made him feel, Gii exited the shop quickly. It wouldn’t do to let out that the Saki heir was going loopy.

But he knew that it was good practice. He was making sure that all the re-acquired skills didn’t go to waste, after all – it was the right thing to do. It wasn’t weird to celebrate that. Even if the old man who was now giving him suspicious glances through the shop window didn’t know that.

(And yeah, Gii could have chosen another shop to buy his morning newspaper from. He usually did, in fact. And he may have switched purely based on the knowledge that that one was run by a Japanese person. So that he could practice his Japanese.)

**

Sometimes Gii forgot that his bedroom was in fact filled with mementos. He spent so little time in there – his priority was so often work that he only used the room for sleep, and nothing else.

Still though, all this going down memory lane with his books of Japanese – it had reminded him of all these other things he owned which were precious to him. Or at least, were at one point. There were school pictures which his mom had insisted he keep, there were class photos, and… one picture which was hidden a little behind the rest.

Pulling it out, he looked at his seven year old face. He had been a cute kid, he thought. And then his eyes slid to the child next to him.

It was someone he’d not thought about in a long time. Sachi Inoue.

The two of them had spent so much time together during Gii’s trips to Japan. If social media had been more of a thing then, he was sure that they wouldn’t have lost touch. But as it was, he’d been too young to do anything about it when it was decided that he would be living in New York permanently, and touch had been lost.

That didn’t mean that those memories weren’t fond for him, though.

Running a finger along the edge of the picture frame, Gii smiled. That had been a good day – he and Sachi had been such good friends back then.

How Gii had forgotten about the other’s existence was beyond him, but he knew he had to do something about it. His childhood friend would surely be happy to hear from him (assuming that he wasn’t too busy to talk, of course).

Gii might not have kept in close contact with the man, but he had followed his career with interest, watching as he gained more and more recognition until he was playing sold out stadiums. A far cry from the recitals Gii had tagged along to when they were children.

Would Sachi have Facebook? Gii was unsure, and he dug his phone out to check.

He leaned against the wall as he opened the app and nervously searched for Sachi. What would he do if he didn’t? Might his parents have his contact information? It was possible, they knew a lot of –

Ah. There were several claiming to be Sachi. He would simply have to look at them all to determine which, if any, were genuine, a daunting task.

Nevertheless, Gii was nothing if not patient, and he methodically went through each profile, easily dismissing those which were obvious fakes. There was also a public page for Sachi – if nothing else, he could message that in hopes that whoever ran it could put him in touch.

Being a public figure meant that Gii was suspicious of any profile which hadn’t been shown to him in person, and more times than he could count he had been stalked or catfished by those pretending to be people he knew.

There was one which particularly stood out – it was completely private, which was a good sign, and had only what appeared to be candid shots of Sachi, no publicity photos at all. Taking a risk, Gii sent him a friend request and immediately closed the app.

Putting his phone away, unwilling to dwell on the matter for any longer, Gii walked firmly towards his office. Just because today was technically a day off didn’t mean he could afford to slack completely – there was still plenty to be doing.

Making his way back to his office, he told himself sternly that he couldn’t dwell over this. If Sachi got in touch, great. If he didn’t that was fine too – they hadn’t talked in years, he could wait a little longer.

Of course, naturally that resolution was spoiled a few minutes later.

He had made a valiant effort to avoid looking at his phone. The spreadsheets on his computer were calling his name, desperately needing looking at – and yet somehow he couldn’t bring himself to concentrate on any of it.

After half an hour of attempted work, Gii’s hand began to twitch towards his phone. It was sat on his desk, out of arm’s reach, and yet it was right there, taunting him with the knowledge that it held.

For a few minutes more Gii tried to abstain from picking the device up. He pushed it further away, behind a pile of paper so that he couldn’t see it, and threw himself into his work.

Or at least, he tried to.

The green light of his message notification peeked up from behind the stack of paper. Clearly something was going on, and Gii wanted to know what it was. Usually he might not be so concerned, but this time he had something going on, something that meant more to him than he’d like to admit.

Hesitantly he reached beyond the paper. His hand trembled a little as he picked up his phone, and he did his best to pretend like it wasn’t happening, like he wasn’t getting super worked up over potentially reconnecting with his old best friend.

_Sachi Inoue has accepted your friend request._

The words were bright on his screen, and very welcome.

With fingers that were still shaky, he clicked on the notification. Now, with more of Sachi’s profile revealed, he could see that it was him, for sure.

Judging by the pictures he could see, it looked like Sachi tended to travel a lot. That didn’t surprise him much – his old friend was well known, as he knew, so it made sense that he’d be going to different countries to play. Why they hadn’t met up on the trips to America he’d clearly had Gii didn’t know – but things weren’t going to continue like this, he decided.

Pulling up messenger, he took a moment to delight in the fact that there was now a ‘you are now connected to Sachi Inoue’ message there. Then he clicked on it, and began to compose a message. What to say to him? It wasn’t like a ‘hey, how are you’ kind of message would suffice in this situation. It had to be good. And also maybe address the fact that they’d not spoken in about ten years.

Giichi  
Hey Sachi! It’s been a while, huh? How have you been doing?

It was the most generic thing he’d ever seen. And yet he would just have to send it, to hope that it didn’t come off as insincere. Which it wasn’t. would Sachi even know him well enough to know that anymore?

The minutes ticked by with no reply. Gii became more and more anxious about it. Would Sachi have accepted his friend request if he had no intention of reconnecting with Gii? He didn’t think that his old friend seemed the type, but he had no idea any more.

Or was he maybe just busy?

Yeah, that was probably it.

(he had to fight the urge to send a follow up message just in case.)

When messages did finally come in, Gii found them able to chat much more easily than he’d been expecting. For two people who’d barely spoken in the last ten years, conversation flowed nicely. Gii found himself genuinely invested in his old friend’s stories of his adventures around the globe – and he wanted to believe that they were all true, no matter how crazy.

Then the conversation turned to their childhood, to their shared past.

Sachi  
Remember that time we played a prank on your dad and he got really mad at us

Giichi  
Which time haha

Sachi  
Right, good point… I meant the time where we replaced your dad’s whipped cream with shaving cream?

Gii snorted to himself. He’d totally forgotten that that had happened – and that was despite the fact that his dad had been angry with him for a full week after.

Giichi  
Oh yeah, that was so weird… good times

Sachi  
I know right? I don’t think there have been many times since then I’ve had so much fun

Was that a bit sad? It came across as a bit sad. Hopefully Sachi hadn’t meant it in that way.

Still, he was quick to change the topic slightly.

Giichi  
Remember all those recitals you dragged me to?

It was fond to remember these things that he’d not thought about in a long time. There had been long periods where they’d not had much to do at the recitals, and they’d managed to get up to plenty – and that was while their parents were hovering around them.

To be fair, those times in his childhood were remembered pretty fondly by him too.

Sachi  
that was great, right? You did always love hearing me play

Well, maybe that was less true than the fact that his parents made him go to support his friend. Not that he hadn’t enjoyed it at all, but it hadn’t been on his list of top ten favourite things to do.

The rest of the conversation passed in a similar way. They had plenty of things to reminisce about, as well as things to update one another on. It was good, he thought, to feel connected to Japan through something familiar, as well as through new things like his friendship with Takumi.

Hopefully this feeling would make him feel better about everything else going wrong with his life.

**

“That’s what it was about!”

Gii sat bold upright in bed. Ignoring the fact that he’d just spoken to himself (he wasn’t going mad, okay?), he’d just had important information revealed to him. In a dream.

Okay, that wasn’t quite true.

Somehow, lying in bed and trying to get to sleep had brought forth the knowledge of the dream he’d had. The memories were murky – mostly because that’s pretty sure what it had been. Not a normal dream at all, but memories from his childhood.

Even as the images flashed through his mind, he was sure that there were some parts of it that were missing.

Sachi had been there -no doubt his subconscious had been reminded about him due to their recent reconnection – and they’d been… at a recital of some kind? Why would he have been at Sachi’s recitals? Had they really been such good friends as that?

He couldn’t be sure, but honestly there had been little else to remember from it.

Wait, no…

There had been someone else there. Well, there had been plenty of other kids at the recital, but for some reason one of them stuck out in his memory. Had they been friends too or something?

Gii wracked his memory, but he just couldn’t remember if he’d had other friends while in japan. His visits had so often been focussed on visiting family that he couldn’t remember whether there had been any significant other people there.

Had there been? Who knew. Certainly not him.

The dream had been weird if there hadn’t been any other kids though. Which kinda made him expect that it had been real.

His head hurt a little trying to think it through.

He lay back, trying to think it all through. He’d maybe had other childhood friends in japan that his parents had never mentioned. And he’d totally forgotten about them until now.

Maybe it was a thought for another time.

Whoever they were, they clearly couldn’t have been that important if he’d forgotten about them until now. If there was anything else about them that he needed to know, he’d probably remember it at some point.

And with that, he went back to sleep.

**

As Gii tugged on his suit, he had to keep reminding himself that there was a reason behind all this. He'd wanted to do this, volunteered for it, even.

It would be a good thing.

Even if it meant doing something he hated.

It wouldn't be the first party he'd attended with his parents not there. There had been other ones, where it had been impossible for them to come, by being out of town, or too busy with work, or just making their excuses.

But it would be the first one where his purpose for being there wasn't the family business. Every other time it had been for that sole purpose, and that made it quite easy really.

This time though? This time he would have to worry about every word he said in a way he hadn't had to before.

Even with all the Japanese practice he'd got in in the last few weeks, he still didn't feel completely in control of the language. He...

Throwing all those thought out of the window, he refocussed on his reflection. He was meant to be making sure he looked good. After all, that was half the Thing To Do at these parties - if you could make a good impression, all the other businessmen would be more likely to pay attention to you. It was a practice that Gii didn't particularly like, but it was the way things were.

Concluding that the lines of his suit were crisp, and that there were no stains on it (not that there should have been, not with it being dry cleaned only the other day, but you never know) he figured he was probably good to go.

He debated going to say goodbye to his parents for the night. They'd been very weird about him going in the first place - they couldn't stop him, of course, but they'd asked a million questions when he'd brought it up. Especially his dad - there had been a resurgence of his strange attitude to Takumi brought back up, and so he'd tried to avoid mentioning him where possible.

On the one hand, if he did go he might run the risk of being late - but on the other hand, if he didn't go and say bye, they'd be just as annoyed at him.

Deciding that he'd just pop in quickly, and stringently avoid allowing them to say anything more than necessary, he wandered downstairs and popped his head in the living room. His dad wasn't in there (no surprises there) but his mom was.

"Bye!" he said as cheerfully as he could muster. "I’ll text you when I know when I’ll be back!"

Success.

His mom didn't follow him, but he did hear her shout her own goodbyes. It was appreciated, to know that she cared enough for that. But it was also good that she wasn't going to delay him.

Checking his watch, he was relieved to see that he was running about five minutes early. The thing officially started at 7, and he had to leave at about half 6.

Truthfully, he didn't know when or how much translating he'd have to do - so he figured it would be best to be there from as early as possible.

His driver should be outside, he thought as he walked through the house. It was a longer walk than he'd like - plus getting all the way out, and UGH, it left him feeling like he was running late even when he wasn't.

Trotting down the front steps, he was relieved to see that the car was in fact there. He'd been slightly worried that it might not have been, since this wasn't a proper business sanctioned party. But here it was, all ready and proper.

Gii slid in the seat, admiring the feel of the cool leather through his suit. It went some way to calming him down. He hadn't realised just how warm he'd got while he was worrying about it, and it was nice to get nice and cool.

As the car set off, he pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket. going straight to his emails, he went about triple checking the date and time he'd been told. It was just an email that had been forwarded to his personal assistant that had been forwarded to him - there was little information on it other than that. And, of course, that Mr Hayama had requested that he attend as a translator.

Being used to this sort of thing, he shouldn't have been the sort to need to double check that all this was going on on the right date, and that he was headed to the right venue. It was the sort of thing his dad would chide him for.

But for something like this? It was an urge he couldn't ignore.

Unlike the last time he'd seen Takumi, this particular party was being held in the house of the person hosting it. That would undoubtedly make things more awkward for them - how was he meant to get time alone with him if they were supposed to be within the public spaces of the house the entire time?

The question would have to be answered later.

Gii put his phone back in his pocket. He was grateful, in a way, that it meant that he didn't have to go too far to get there. Setting off so early was really more of a precaution than anything else, and he knew that he'd likely arrive within plenty of time.

A mixture of anticipation and hope began to fill his stomach - along with the nerves he already had. He'd been longing to see Takumi again from the moment they'd agreed to have Gii be his translator again. Now was just the time it was finally going to happen - and it had to be perfect. From the time he'd received that email, and knew that it was genuinely going to happen, he'd been practicing the sorts of things he might say to Takumi. That in itself was sort of fun. But it wouldn't hold a candle to what seeing him in person would be like.

It was disappointing when he arrived. The house was all done up, it looked very nice, and there were plenty of people arriving too, so he didn't feel like the only one who thought that was a good idea.

But by the time he got shunted into the main room, and had escaped the clutches of various old men that he knew?

Takumi was already playing.

How that had been set up without him being able to talk to them he didn't know, but there it was.

Cursing his inability to get here fast enough, he settled in for a long and tedious evening.

In a way, this party seemed to progress in a similar way to how the last one had. All the people kept trying to talk to him. He would try to seem interested in what they were saying. And then in every spare moment his eye would be drawn to Takumi.

Somehow it was an even stronger pull than the one he'd felt before. Was his music magic? Was there something about his violin that sang to him, made his attention focus compulsively on him?

Gii didn't know, but he thought that it was likely. He'd never cared this much about music before, and yet he found himself thinking with each new piece that it suited Takumi well, that he must have chosen it himself.

As always, there was a certain level of amazement at how different he was on stage compared to offstage. He'd seen a similar thing in Sachi, of course, but that had been long ago, half-forgotten. Takumi's difference was stark, and made Gii wonder how much the other man was hiding from the world.

If he had thought it was difficult last time to keep focused as Takumi played, it was even worse this time. Now that he had a proper connection to the man? He couldn't help but try to get inside his head a little. Perhaps he was totally wrong (he was aware that he probably was) but all the same, it kept him amused.

There wasn't even a lot of food at this one. Since it wasn't really a dinner party, the only food was Hors d’oeuvres, and even then there weren't many of them. It made him glad he'd eaten before he left - he would never have survived on these tiny things.

They were good though. He was rather more familiar with them then other people his age, he knew, since he'd practically grown up with them as his snack food. (Okay, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but still, they were more normal to him than they were to his friends.) As he chewed on one, trying to use it as an excuse for the people here to leave him alone, he absently wondered if Takumi had had things like these before. If he was used to playing at parties like these, then surely he would be, right? But Gii realised that he didn't actually know if that was the case. He knew that Takumi wasn't accustomed to doing them here, in America, sure, but that didn't mean that he didn't back in japan. He made a mental note to bring it up afterwards.

The party passed in a sort of state of timelessness. It was just like many others he'd attended throughout his life: formulaic and full of musty old men. In a way it blended in with the rest, and if he hadn't had his watch to let him know what the time was he might have not known that time was passing at all.

All of this meant that by the time it actually got around to translating time? Gii was almost looking forward to it as a way to alleviate the boredom. (He'd been tempted so many times to just sit in the corner on his phone, but he knew his dad would find out about it and he'd get told off for it.)

"Mr Saki?" Nobody had talked to him in about half an hour, and hearing a voice behind him say his name made him jump.

"Yes?" He said, spinning around. For that moment all his training had been forgotten - that was pure instinct. He did his best to curtail his fright as he saw that it was just one of their workers. They'd been dotted around all night serving drinks, but he'd not had one talk to him directly.

He could see the way the other man was trying not to laugh at him, and he sort of appreciated it. "If you'll follow me, Mr Hayama wishes to speak to you before he goes out among everyone."

Gii looked up to the stage. Takumi was still up there. that meant that when he made that request... it must have been before Gii had even got there.

That thought made his heart jump a little. If he was being honest, the rest of him wanted to a little, but unfortunately it wasn't an option.

Was it a weird coincidence, or was it planned that Takumi would leave at this moment? Because as Gii began to walk out of the main hall, he could see Takumi finishing this last song, and putting his violin down. It was probably planned – but it was also slightly weird to see.

In a deja vu moment, Gii was lead 'backstage' to wherever Takumi had set up shop with his own stuff. He was kinda glad about it - it would give him time to talk to Takumi on his own a bit more. As he was taken through the various corridors (because of course it couldn't be as easy as 'go behind the stage') he wondered at how big this house was. He didn't even think his own home was a large as this one.

As Gii was let into Takumi's dressing room, he found himself wondering if there was anything in particular that Takumi wanted to talk about.

The first thing he saw was a violin case strewn over the floor. The second was Takumi crouched over it, carefully packing his violin away. It made sense, his violin being what made him his living, presumably, but still. It was an odd position to be in.

Gii cleared his throat. Since the sound of the door opening and then closing didn't seem to have caught the man's attention, clearly he was going to have to do it himself.

Takumi visibly jumped. Then he looked up - and when he saw Gii, his face lit up. For a second Gii thought that maybe Takumi was just genuinely really happy to see him. And then he remembered that he was the only person here that spoke the same language as him, of course he'd be happy to see him.

" _Gii_!" The man said. " _I’m so glad you're here_." He stood up and gave a small bow. " _I’ve been told that there are a lot of men out there who wish to book me for their own private functions, and I want to only accept a few of them_."

Well, that hadn't been what Gii expected to hear. " _Really? Why_?" He couldn't help the question slipping out. These things must pay so well, and in a time where classically trained musicians were in less and less demand, they must take every opportunity like this when they could get them.

Takumi shrugged. " _The pay is good, but since a lot of it goes into travel anyway, there seems to be little point in doing this a lot. Besides, I have other things on back home, and I can't be constantly dropping that and coming here to perform for men like you_."

Well if that wasn't mysterious Gii didn't know what was. but - for now he should leave it alone. He could see the man that had led him here through a crack between the door and its frame, impatiently tapping his shoe on the ground. Presumably he was to escort them back into the hall the way Gii had left it, and they were probably taking up precious time that Takumi could be - in theory - selling his services in. That was probably a big reason that a lot of the people were here for. In circles like theirs, news travelled fast.

" _Shall we get going_?" The questions remained in the back of Gii's mind, but it was sheer force of will that squashed them to the back, there to be let out later.

Takumi agreed, and so they set off out to the thing together.

They were silent while being led back into the main hall. It seemed awkward to talk amongst themselves with someone else right there, listening in, even if he wouldn’t have been able to understand a word they were saying.

Once they got there Gii barely had room to be glad that the servant left them as they were almost immediately surrounded by more businessmen.

For a while there was nothing but the same as there had been the last time they did this. Just like earlier, a sense of déjà vu came over him, the men all blending together like they were no different from one another.

Most of what he actually ended up doing was repeating things from person to person. No, Takumi couldn’t be touched. No, he wasn’t available then. Sometimes Takumi would tell him that he did want to let this or that person hire him, and so that would be a brief change to the pattern. For the most part though, it was entirely boring.

Even then, though, Gii found himself feeling more confident in his abilities. The past few weeks had paid off, it would seem, and he was sure that he was doing a better job this time – if nothing else, he found it easier to process things Takumi said to him. That was progress, right?

When it seemed they'd talked to every businessman in the room, Gii breathed a sigh of relief. He'd not spoken Japanese for this long in a while, not even at the last party. It was giving him a bit of a headache with the concentration it required, and he really just needed a breather.

Takumi seemed just as happy to sit at the edge of the room and be quiet with him. Gii had noticed the way that he seemed to dislike large crowds - not in principle, since he was fine on stage, but the moment he was in one he became even more reserved than before. It was probably because of his not-being-touched thing, Gii knew - but it didn't stop him from wondering why he continued to take these sorts of jobs if he didn't like doing a significant part of it.

It would be rude to ask though.

Or would it...?

Did they know one another well enough for Gii to ask about that? He considered the idea for a minute.

No. if it was something super personal, he didn't want to pry, or bring up bad memories.

But there were still plenty of other things he could ask about. Things that _probably_ weren't too private.

Taking a second to rid himself of the English that wanted to come out of his mouth (he was tired, okay), he asked, " _so what is it that you do in Japan? That's not this, I mean_?" Takumi had referenced there being something else earlier, so it couldn't be too off limits, right?

Takumi seemed surprised that he was asking about anything - like he was surprised he was being spoken to by him, as if they weren't sort of friends now. " _I.. I teach_."

Now that hadn't been an answer he expected. This skinny, shy waif of a thing, a teacher? " _Wait, really_?" His answer was automatic, prompted by his hindbrain in disbelief.

Takumi nodded. he looked nervous, and Gii felt a bit bad for reacting in the way he had. " _Yeah, I thought it would be good for me... and I enjoy doing it_."

" _Oh... well, that's good, I guess. If you enjoy doing it_." Gii suddenly hoped the conversation wouldn’t be thrown back at him - he didn't want to have to discuss the merits of the career path he'd had thrust upon him since childhood - that was usually something he didn't even want to talk about.

Takumi nodded. " _I do enjoy it. I find it rewarding to help the children with their studies. and with the others, too._ "

that... that was an odd comment to make. but still. " _So, whereabouts do you teach_?"

Belatedly he realised that that probably was the same as asking where he lived, which was a much weirder question to be asking - but it was far too late to take it back. " _In the same school that I went to as a child_."

" _That's cool... You liked it enough to stay on there, huh_?" Gii couldn't imagine having loyalty like that to his own high school - it had been nice and all, but he'd have to have a really good reason to want to go back there at all.

Takumi shrugged. " _Yeah, I guess_."

Suddenly Gii had a thought. It had been awkward, hadn’t it, when he’d had to go through emails and various things in order to get in contact with Takumi? Wouldn’t it be easier, then, if he just… cut out the middle man?

“ _Hey, Takumi_ …?” He began. The other man looked up from where he’d been typing a message on his phone. (Part of Gii had been curious about who he was talking to, but even he knew that to ask that would come across as invasive.) “ _Do you… would you like my number? Or my email address_?”

Takumi cocked his head to the side. “ _I… I don’t know_.”

Gii hastened to clarify what he meant. “ _Just so that you can tell me if you need me to translate again! There’s no pressure to actually talk to me. If you don’t want to. Not that you can’t, if you do want to_.” He cut himself off before he could ramble even more.

Takumi still seemed slightly confused. “ _But do you really think I’ll get more gigs where I need a translator_?”

Gii shrugged. “ _Who knows, am I right? I mean, any one of those guys out there that you agreed to play for might want you to do the same thing as today. In which case_ …” he left the implication there.

Takumi seemed slightly uncertain still – but he agreed anyway. “ _Sure, okay then_.”

Gii fumbled in his jacket pocket to find a business card that he knew would be in there somewhere. He always made sure to keep some on him at all times just in case, but he never knew which pocket they were in – he had a bad habit of changing which pocket all the time.

Eventually he found one (it was slightly crumpled, but oh well) and he handed it over to Takumi. “ _Here you go_.”

Takumi took it gratefully. “ _I’ll be sure to use it_.”

Privately Gii wondered whether he was going to do that. He hoped that he would – but then, who knew if he would actually do any more of these. As sad as he was at that thought, he knew that it was true.

Checking his watch, Gii was surprised to see how late it was. Quickly he got out his phone to see plenty of messages from his parents, all nagging him to let him know when he was going to be back. With the excitement of everything, he’d totally forgotten to message them.

Honestly the floor was beginning to clear, and Gii thought that it was probably time for him to get going. Takumi probably thought the same, if his yawns were anything to go by.

“ _Um… so I was thinking it’s probably time to leave, now_ …” Gii said, hoping he didn’t sound rude or anything.

Takumi looked up at him gratefully. “ _Yeah, me too_.”

It didn’t take long for Gii to find out that Takumi already had a car booked to take him to where he was staying – and this was despite Gii offering to get his own driver to take him there.

Ordinarily, at this point Gii might have tried to have them part with a hug. That wasn’t exactly possible in this situation, and so he had to make do with a bow and a, “ _don’t forget to let me know if you need me to translate again_.” Or anything else, he added privately.

Takumi had smiled at the idea. It made Gii hopeful that it might actually happen.

It was on the journey home that Gii realised that he’d never asked Takumi what it actually was that he taught. Nor had he clarified whereabout his school was. That was weird, right?

Had he just not asked the right questions – or was Takumi keeping more things from him? He didn’t know

But he wanted to find out.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is this chapter not as good as the last one? maybe. but do i care? not really

Not that Gii would ever admit this to his parents, but sometimes he spent longer thinking about what could have been than he liked.  

If he told them about his musings on it – well, he didn’t think that would end well. They were both the pragmatic type, only really interested in what was real and tangible. If it didn’t happen, they didn’t care.

Or, on the other hand, since this was something they’d spent so long fighting about, they might think that he was having a real change of heart. They might not get that this was all an exercise in what could have been, not what he wanted.

Plus, they’d probably use it as an excuse to send him to japan again. Not that he would be averse to taking a trip there, but they’d been trying for years to get him to go there permanently – to do business there, to join the Japanese side of the company.

The idea had never appealed. He had all his roots here – even though he had family there, there was little to no reason he couldn’t do all the same stuff here, in the city and country that he knew best.

But that didn’t stop him from thinking about it.

Mostly these thoughts came at night. He wasn’t able to distract himself at this time – and it drove him slightly mad to have his thoughts constantly looping in an imagination of what it would have been like to go to school in Japan.

Except it was worse now, because Takumi would end up being in the imaginary story no matter how hard he tried.

The imaginary classes didn’t matter; he just wanted to think what it would have been like to be at school with this one person he sort of knew. That was weird, right?

But it didn’t matter; he couldn’t shut his brain up about it. No matter how much he tried to ignore it and just sleep, it wouldn’t go away.

(In his mind, he and Takumi would have shared a desk. Maybe they’d have been at boarding school together and been on the same floor. Or the same room, even.

And maybe Takumi would have fallen in love with him as they got closer and closer, and…

Okay, so he knew how unrealistic all that would have been. But he could dream, right?)

**

The same fantasies followed him into his dreams. The weirdest one was where he and Takumi were eating sushi off each other’s bodies in the classroom. He didn’t really know where that one had come from in his brain.

It left him never really able to get away from his thoughts about what it would have been like to go to school with him (the weird side aside). It occupied thought time that should have been spent doing more productive things, yet because he didn’t inherently mind them, he just kinda… never bothered to stop himself from contemplating it?

The idea just couldn’t be shaken from his mind.

Given how close he had come to it being reality, it wasn’t too strange for him to imagine. Right? He even knew some of the schools his father had looked at during the time they’d fought over the decision in the past.

It was an intriguing thought, and it wouldn’t leave him alone.

Maybe if it had happened, he could have known Takumi during their childhoods.

**

Gii tapped his pencil on the table.

He was in the middle of an important meeting. His dad was there, at the head of the table, delivering some PowerPoint presentation Gii had heard him practicing all week. A bunch of investors and other people that Gii sort of knew were there too, on either side of him. (He probably should have known them all off by heart, as per his father’s insistence, but somehow it just evaded him. Probably because it was boring.)

He should have been paying attention. Taking notes. Learning.

And yet he just didn’t want to.

Over the weeks since the last party, his thoughts had become more and more filled with Takumi. Sure, there would be hours where he didn’t think about him at all – but the longer this went on, the more Gii thought that he wasn’t going to hear from Takumi again.

He’d probably scared him off by insisting on giving him the means to contact him. And with all the questions.

Internally he cursed himself for it. He should have been more patient, more reserved. He should have let Takumi come to him when he was ready to.

Instead, he would probably never see him again.

It was that thought that captured his mind more than anything else. Sure, he might have found himself fantasising about spending more time alone with him – like on a date, maybe – but for the most part the longing wasn’t sexual.

There were still so many questions he had about him. And now he might never get them answered. That idea bugged him like nothing else.

Naturally his distraction was noticed by his father. His eyes hadn’t been on the PowerPoint in a good ten minutes, instead fixed on the table in front of him. He wasn’t really _looking_ there, more just letting his eyes wander wherever they wanted while he was lost in thought, but either way it gave the game away.

“…chi? Giichi!” His father’s sharp tone brought him back to the present. The thoughts of Takumi didn’t really leave him, but he did try to ignore them for a minute or two.

His father had asked him some question – innocuous, yes, but would have been part of his weird tests he had for him. No doubt that he’d be told off more for not paying attention later – but Gii still answered the question correctly, so that was something.

It was a good way of distracting him though.

He didn’t think about it for the next ten minutes or so. His focus on the presentation sort of helped him to understand what was going on in this meeting. Okay, there was something to do with stock, and shares, and – Takumi had been cute the last time he’d seen him.

Without even realising it, he found some of the music Takumi had played floating around in his head. It was sort of annoying – apart from the fact that he didn’t know the music that well, it was a bit distracting. Maybe even more distracting than everything else.

The meeting seemed to stretch out forever. Okay, maybe not forever, but when he didn’t have anything to actively do (he didn’t even need to take notes by this point) it was easy to get lost in his thoughts and wish he was elsewhere.

He hoped that the sadness that came with thinking about Takumi didn’t show too much outwardly. It was true, that he really thought he’d never see the other man again. The more he thought about it, mused over the way the other man probably viewed him, the clearer it became.

Practice was the key thing keeping his emotions off his face in such a public environment. It was times like these that he was grateful that he’d had the training to allow him to stay so straight faced, even when upset.

Maybe it was the time to start thinking about giving up on the hopes of him getting in contact. If his next few months were going to be spent like this, moping over someone who probably never liked him in the first place, then it would probably be best to nip this crush in the bud.

For now, at least, his career was probably more important.

******

Gii sat down gingerly in the chair. It was hard, and this was not the place he would have chosen to go to if he had any choice in the matter.

Still, it was worth it to see his friend. And his friend, unfortunately, had very specific ideas about where they would or would not eat. This was one of the few places he had deemed acceptable, and so Gii would just have to suffer through it.

"Hey, man!" Peter sat down opposite him. Thankfully he'd volunteered to go get their drinks - Gii had no idea what was up with the menu in this place, but it was like it changed every day, and only certain people even knew about the changes. They all had really weird names too, and Peter was like a genius in figuring out what the hell any of them actually meant.

"Hey," Gii said, pulling his own drink towards him. "So how have you been?"

If only he could just have asked these things through text, or message, or something else a little more modern. But no, Peter insisted on them only catching up in person - he would only answer messages to arrange their meetups.

"I’ve been good!" Peter exclaimed after taking a sip of his coffee. "College is kicking my butt, but what's new." Okay, so even though Peter had his quirks, he was still super smart - he was in the middle of getting a PhD in something that Gii still didn't quite understand. It was impressive, and Gii commended him for it.

"Good, I’m glad to hear it," Gii said, taking another sip of his drink. "Where did you find this place?"

Peter took a second to look around, as though he wasn't even sure where they were. Knowing the amount of places his friend knew, he wouldn’t have even been surprised if he'd mixed them up.

"Uuh... I don't think I remember for this one? It's sort of near college though, so I probably ran into it sometime when I was caffeine-deprived." He shrugged. "There's too many good places to choose from."

Gii chuckled - he couldn't imagine being bothered enough to go out and discover new places just to drink coffee. He was always too impatient for that - he would just get his coffee from the shitty machine in their office and call it a day. Even if it was gritty and sometimes tasted like someone should really clean its insides.

"Has that mostly been what you've been doing then?" Gii asked through his laughter. "Trying to get as much coffee inside you as possible?"

Peter laughed. "Yep, pretty much. What else is there to do?"

"I don't know, I don't think I’d want to do that." Gii shrugged. Why were they talking about coffee again? It wasn't even something Gii liked that much, why would he want to talk about it?

"So how have you been since last time?" He asked.

He was expecting a detailed analysis of all of Peter's schoolwork for the past few weeks - and that was what he received. yup. that was exactly what he wanted and understood. He understood little of the details – but he did care, and so he tried his best to pay attention.

Oops – he nearly missed Peter throwing the question back at him.

“Me? I’ve been –“ suddenly the only thing of note he could think of was Takumi. There had been a few things at his work that could maybe have been noteworthy, but none of that would be interesting to his friend.

He leaned in closer – he and Peter might not be that close any more, but he knew about Gii’s sexuality. He would know to keep this quiet. “I met a guy.”

Peter leaned in too. “You did? That’s great!”

Gii nodded. His self control was beginning to slip, he could feel it – that image of Takumi in his mind was making some of his composure fail, like his general mandate to never show overt emotion public. Apparently Takumi was strong enough to break through years of careful training. That in itself was impressive.

“I mean, I don’t know whether anything’s going to happen between us. He lives in japan, and I’ve only really seen him a few times.” Gii was quick to clarify their exact situation. There was no reason to overexaggerate what was between them.

Peter frowned. “Really? Is there no way for you to see him more? I know you said he lives all the way over there, but surely there something you can do?”

Gii sighed. “No, not really… I gave him my contact info, and he hasn’t tried to contact me yet. So I don’t have a way of getting hold of him without really going out of my way for it – and I’m beginning to think that he doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“I’m sure it’ll all be okay.” Peter patted Gii on the hand. It was surprisingly comforting – for a minute he did think that maybe it would all be okay.

But then the lack of messages reminded him that maybe he wouldn’t.

And suddenly his mood was down again – regardless of his friend’s helpfulness.

The rest of their meetup wasn’t so saddening. They talked about other things, and by the end of it he did actually feel a little better. He could go about everyday life without having to worry about Takumi. He could do this. He knew it.

******

“What the ever loving fuck is happening?” Gii muttered to himself, staring at his phone in disbelief.

No, the message was still there, in his email inbox. He hadn’t imagined it, or misread it.

_Hey Giichi! I’m going to be in New York for a week soon, and I was wondering if you wanted to meet up?_

While it was weird that Takumi was calling him Giichi, as if they hadn’t met in person multiple times, it was still awesome that that message even existed.

His immediate instinct was to respond, to just type out ‘YES!!!!’ and be done with it.

That probably wouldn’t sound very good though. At least, he thought that (his thumbs were still hovering over the y letter).

He was meant to be a businessman. He’d seen his father send professional emails ever since he was young, it shouldn’t have been hard for him to compose a better response.

Putting his phone down, he tried to calm down. His breathing was weirdly elevated , and he didn't really know why this was making him so anxious. He'd made the decision to not worry about this moment, after all - he'd been doing his best to keep those thoughts from his mind. This moment shouldn't have been such a big deal.

And yet it was.

Taking a few moments to try to calm down, Gii tried to pull his thoughts together, coherently. It wasn’t necessarily all that successful, but it did reduce his urges to send ridiculous replies.

_Hi Takumi,_

_I’d be more than happy to meet at your convenience. When would suit you best?_

_Regards,_

_Gii_

Was that too formal?

He sent the email before he could begin to worry about it any further.

This was happening. It was actually going to happen; he was going to see Takumi outside of work or translating or anyone else around. Just the two of them and (maybe) a date.

Wait. Did the message not sound excited enough? Gii studied what he’d sent. Sure, he hadn’t wanted to seem overeager, but he also didn’t want to make it sound like he and Takumi were business partners meeting to talk about the stock exchange.

But then he noticed just how quickly he’d replied. Takumi had sent his message at 19:08, Gii’s time. And then he’d replied at 19:21. That was only a ten minute difference.

If Takumi didn’t pick up on the eagerness that was inherent in that, Gii didn’t know how else he could prove it.

_Eep._

He was actually going to see his crush again. How had he even managed this?


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The same thing as the last chapter applies - not my best work, and a shorter chapter too. oh well.

Gii realised that his leg was shaking again, and he had to force it to stop. It only happened when he was really nervous – that didn’t happen very often, and the feeling in general was unfamiliar to him. Most of the time he was able to enter any situation with the grace and dignity required of him – but it would seem that this was not one of those times.

Well, maybe it didn’t matter too much if he wasn’t as poised as usual. It wasn’t like he was meeting up with a potential investor, or trying to say another company round to their way of thinking.

No, this was much more important than any of that.

Today was the day he was going to see Takumi again.

Just thinking the words sent a shock of anticipation through his body. It wasn’t entirely pleasant – but it wasn’t unwelcome either. After so long of thinking that this wasn’t going to happen at all, ever, he was thrilled that the time had finally come.

It had taken a little while for them to figure out exactly what their options for meeting were going to be. Takumi’s first few suggestions had been during times that Gii would be at work – and while he could probably swing a sneaky hour or two away from his desk, if his father caught wind of it, he’d need to have a good alibi – and that just wouldn’t be possible right now, not with the work that he was meant to be doing.

So that had left them with this day, a whole week after Takumi had arrived in America, during Gii’s lunch break. It definitely wasn’t the worst way he’d ever spent his lunch, given the amount of people he’d had to entertain during them at earlier times in his career, even though he’d had to get the metro just to get here. Apparently, it was near to Takumi’s hotel, hence why he’d chosen it – although he hadn’t actually told Gii which hotel that was. Gii couldn’t blame him for not telling him that though – privacy was important, and they were really mostly still strangers.

Takumi still wasn’t here though. He checked his phone again, just to paranoidly check that he was here at the right place and time (it would seem that that was going to be a recurring thing with him and seeing Takumi). Yep, the details were right. And to be fair, he’d miscalculated exactly how long it was going to take him to get here and been 15 minutes early, and there were still five of those left to go. So even though he was worrying, Takumi could still be perfectly on time.

He was glad he’d already picked himself up a drink though – he at least had something to do with his hands while he waited. He would at least only look like he’d been stood up if Takumi didn’t show, instead of like a creep who was here for no good reason.

The minutes slowly crept closer to their meeting time. It made him more and more nervous the later it got – but he didn’t really know whether that was from fear that he wouldn’t show, or anticipation at seeing him again.

Naturally, he happened to be looking at his phone when he heard the chair opposite from him scrape along the floor.

There stood Takumi, flushed from the chill outside, sitting gingerly on the chair. “Sorry I’m late,” he said timidly. (Gii knew what the time was – it was only 1:03)

“It’s okay, you’re barely late.” Gii smiled at him, doing his best to look as non-threatening as possible. “Have you been here before? Do you know what you’re getting?”

Takumi shook his head, and began to study the menu. Trying to be subtle, Gii looked at the members of staff behind the bar to see their reactions – he was sure that they had thought him a complete loser. It made him feel vindicated that they so clearly could see now that he had someone coming after all.

He couldn’t make that obvious though, so he sat there and sipped at his drink before it could go cold instead. (Okay, so maybe he was also watching Takumi a little. But that was allowed for now, right? They were here as friends, it was acceptable to look at one another without it being weird. Damnit, why did he have to end up second guessing himself on every turn?)

Eventually Takumi looked up from the menu. “Well from the bits I can understand, I guess I’ll have… a ham sandwich?”

Gii immediately began to fumble to rectify what had turned into a mistake. “Oh god, I totally forgot – do you want me to translate the other parts of the menu for you? Because I can do that, there might be other things you’d prefer – more Japanese things somewhere, probably –“

He reached out for Takumi to hand over the menu – there was only one per table here – and as it changed hands, their own hands brushed briefly. Gii saw the full body shiver that passed through Takumi’s body. He gasped, too – and Gii immediately felt bad for it, even though it was an accident.

“Sorry!” Gii immediately began to apologise, seeing how uncomfortable even that small touch had made him. “I didn’t mean to! I didn’t think –“

He only cut himself off because Takumi began to chuckle – he had clearly recovered fairly quickly, which was admirable. “It’s okay, Gii. And anyway, I’m here in America, there’s no point in only eating Japanese food.”

“If you’re sure…” he said, standing up to order for them.

It was satisfying to go and order food, finally – he was actually starving. It didn’t take long – the café was pretty empty, an unusual experience for him.

By the time he got back to the table, Takumi was already looking around the café, seeming to take it all in. “I like this place,” he announced as Gii sat back down. “It’s cosy.”

“Yeah, it is. A bit different from what I’m used to, but it’s still nice.” Gii looked around himself, just to join in – he’d spent his time waiting looking around already, but Takumi did have a point.

For a minute they were both just taking in what was around them. Gii almost didn’t want to interrupt the moment – Takumi looked so enamoured with the place that it would have seemed a shame.

But then their food arrived, and even their waiter seemed to find it a little strange that they were just sitting there in silence. Once he’d left, Gii cleared his throat.

“So, um… you play the violin pretty well, huh?” Did that sound like fishing for information or like general curiosity? Gii didn’t really know, but he also didn’t really care to correct himself. He wanted to know more about Takumi, it counted either way, right?

Takumi nodded slightly. That was weird. Gii had expected him to be a little more excited to talk about his playing, given how good he was at it. Usually people only became that good because they really loved to practice it, right? So shouldn’t he be a little more animated on the subject?

Trying not to let his surprise show on his face, he tried again. “You must really love it, right? To make it your career and stuff?”

Takumi shrugged. “I guess. It’s been pretty easy though, so that helps.”

What was that supposed to mean? Takumi’s face was entirely neutral – Gii couldn’t pick up any information based on expression, even though he’d been trained to do just that pretty much from birth.

“That’s… that’s good?” Gii sounded a bit confused, mostly because he was.

“Yeah… it’s not hard for me to do, so it makes sense.” Takumi shrugged. “Do what you’re good at, right? It’s why you do what you do, right?”

Gii blinked. “Well, I think it’s a little more complicated than that – I never really – well, let’s just say that I’ve never really thought about doing anything else. I’m mostly good at it because I’ve been doing it for most of my life.”

Takumi laughed mirthlessly. “Exactly.”

Well this conversation had taken a depressing turn. Gii decided to do what he could to make things a little less depressing.

“So, what’s your favourite thing to play?” That should be a fun question, right?

Takumi taped his fingers on the table, and took a large bite of his sandwich. That was an odd thing to do right after being asked a question – unless he was avoiding answering it, of course. Gii could wait though – he had his own food to eat. Hopefully when Takumi did answer, it would be an interesting one. That, at least, would make the answer worth waiting for.

“I don’t think I have a favourite piece to play right now,” Takumi said once he’d stopped chewing. “I might have done when I was younger, but… I have to learn so many that I don’t really have time for favourites any more.” He shrugged, and went back to eating.

Well that was a weird answer, wasn’t it? Didn’t most people that played an instrument have some favourite song? Still, Gii wasn’t a musician, so he couldn’t be sure. But he could try to dig some more – there had to be some more information Takumi would be willing to tell him.

“So what have you thought of playing for our events? A bit different from teaching, huh?” Gii went down a completely different route this time. Would he be more willing to answer questions on that topic? Gii hoped so – it was getting him down a bit, that Takumi didn’t seem to want to tell him anything that he asked about.

Takumi tilted his head, chewing thoughtfully. “It’s… yeah, I’d say that it’s different. For one, I get paid more.”

For a second that flummoxed Gii – wasn’t that a bit out of left field? – before he realised that it was definitely a joke. (It also hit a little hard too home – he was paid way more than any teacher, despite teaching being, relatively speaking, much more difficult.)

“Yeah, I bet you do,” Gii relaxed a little. “And I bet your students pay more attention to you, huh?”

Fortunately, the joke landed well with Takumi. “Yeah, just a bit,” he chuckled. “If they don’t, they get in trouble. If your businessmen don’t listen, I get paid loads anyway, so it doesn’t bother me much.” Then his expression shifted to be more thoughtful. “Okay, so maybe it does bother me a bit to feel like I’m being ignored, but I guess that’s mostly because I’m meant to be the ambient music, so it sort of makes sense. It’s not like I’m the centre of the show. Although I guess that would sort of be nice.”

“I’d come watch if you were the centre of the show.” The words were out of Gii’s mouth faster than they actually went through his brain.

For a split second he thought it was going to be that comment which threw off the whole afternoon. And then Takumi gave him a genuinely grateful smile. “That’s so nice of you. Thank you.”

Gii felt like his heart was swelling up with adoration, being the recipient of such gratitude. He couldn’t show it though – and as much as it pained him to do so, he had to try to ignore them. No doubt he’d scare Takumi off completely if he admitted those feelings right now.

Instead, he moved onto more questions. “So I assume you play plenty during your lessons, right? Is that where you play the most, to your students?” Gii wasn’t sure whether that would be true, but that was the point of asking, right?

“Oh yeah, my students just love me showing them my playing. I try not to do it too often, since I feel it takes away from their own time playing. Not that I don’t enjoy playing for them, but it seems a little unnecessary most of the time.” Takumi enthused about his students like a truly inspired teacher.

Gii chuckled. “So you don’t just like, give them mini concerts or anything?”

Takumi burst out laughing. Gii was a little startled at how loud it was, but he didn’t mind. “No, nothing like that,” Takumi chortled.

It really struck Gii at this moment that they had only talked about Takumi’s recent violin playing. Nothing of what he said applied from before he was a teacher – and those were the bits he found himself being most interested in!

Ugh, there were so many questions that Gii had running through his head. How was it possible that every time he talked to Takumi, he ended up with more questions that he actually got answered.

What about his childhood? Was he an only child, like Gii? He hadn’t mentioned any siblings, but then he hadn’t really talked about his family at all really. did he actually enjoy his job? Or did he merely tolerate it, like was kinda implied. What had motivated him to keep working in America? Did he not have to spend a crazy amount of time flying? Was his body clock totally fucked? What about his other job?

Gii didn’t feel like he should or could ask him any of these. So far he wasn’t even totally sure why Takumi had actually asked him to come here in the first place – it didn’t even really seem like he wanted to tell Gii anything.

Still, he felt like he had to try at least a little more before giving up. “So, uh... I don’t know if you’d have realised, but this is actually the most I’ve had to use Japanese in a while.” He grinned at Takumi, hoping to make it clear that it was definitely a good thing.

Takumi’s eyes grew wide. “Really?” He asked. He sounded completely incredulous, and Gii didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult.

He settled for assuming neither. “Yeah, it just… hadn’t happened in a while. I was a little out of practice the first time I did it, and I’ve been doing my best to get better at it since then, but I still don’t feel like I really know what I’m doing, you know?

"Well I wouldn’t have noticed at all," Takumi said, wide eyed **.** "Really, I’ve not noticed any mistakes or anything. I wouldn’t have known at all if you hadn't just told me."

Gii sighed dramatically. "That's good to know," he said, pretending to wipe his brow. "I've been trying my best at it. but do you think anyone else would have noticed? I'm sure there's other things I did get wrong at some point or another."

Takumi shrugged. "I really couldn’t say. Probably not, although I guess if I had to pick up on anything? it would maybe be accent? Like, sometimes it comes through as a little American? But probably not to a noticeable degree. I don't know."

It wasn't the most helpful answer, but Gii would take it. "Thanks, now I know what to work on," he said, pretending to write something down. "It does make sense though, I guess if anything accent _would_ have been the thing I lost."

"So why do you think you lost it then?" Takumi asked, folding his arms. He actually looked curious - and Gii couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like this was the first time he had fully engaged in their conversation and wanted to know about Gii himself. It was exciting (his heart might have fluttered a little as it happened.)

"Well, I think there's a few reasons really," Gii said. "Firstly just generally being brought up in a country other than Japan. It sort of limits your opportunities to speak the language, you know? And I was a lot better a few years ago, believe it or not, but I just haven't spoken it much at all for the past few years - again, because there weren't really the opportunities."

"Really? Like, no opportunities at all?" Takumi sounded incredulous, and he leaned in over the table. When Gii shook his head, he then asked, "your parents are Japanese too, right? Could you not speak it with them?"

Gii shrugged helplessly. "To be completely honest, I actually don't know why they didn't speak Japanese with me. Like, they both are fluent in English too, but now that I think about it… it probably would have been a good decision. Instead they just chose to send me to lessons for it instead, where I could sit in a classroom with a bunch of weaboos."

"That's a strange decision to make." Takumi leaned back into his chair and unfolded his arms. "You rich people are weird."

Okay, another joke that was a little too personal. still true though, and he laughed a little.

"Yeah, well, like we established a while ago, we had very different schooling systems," he said.

Takumi nodded. "You can say that again."

Briefly, Gii wondered whether Takumi would be the one to bring up a new topic of conversation. But then he checked his phone to see the time, and oh god he should have left already.

He looked back up at Takumi, who seemed to have realised why Gii suddenly looked panicked. "Time to go back to work, huh?"

Gii nodded ruefully. "Unfortunately, yeah."

Takumi stood up, and bowed a little. "It was good to see you again."

"Yeah, you too. Maybe we can see each other before you have to leave?”

“I’ll try,” Takumi smiled the smile of someone who knew just how bad long flights were. Gii could relate.

And so Gii left the restaurant feeling like he’d accomplished something. To be honest, he wasn’t entirely sure what that something was, but he felt like it was probably something along the lines of making Takumi trust him some more. And that could only be a good thing.

Plus, hopefully he’d get to see him again.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realised while I was writing this chapter that I made a mistake in the last one - nothing major, but that that the day it took place on couldn't be the last day of Takumi being in America. So yeah, that got changed.
> 
> Also I have no idea why all these chapters are so short, but what can you do *shrugs*

Was it weird that Gii found his mood improved all week because of his meeting with Takumi?

Maybe a little. But he didn’t have it in himself to care too much – he and Takumi were properly friends now, so he could be happy about seeing him.

Every day he found himself able to focus better on his work (although that might be because he was no longer anticipating meeting up with Takumi again) and he thought that it was one hundred percent a good thing.

And, as a result of his extra productivity, he was able to be at home more. That was a good thing – and it made him able to spend a little more time with his parents.

(He still spent a significant amount of that time thinking about his meeting with Takumi. It had been the best date of his life – and it hadn’t even been a proper date. He’d just been so interesting, and fun, and… okay, maybe he was a little obsessed right now.)

**

On the first Saturday since he saw Takumi, Gii woke up deciding that today was going to be a good day.

He wasn't going to do any work today - he was just going to relax as much as he could. There was little chance of him having the motivation to do anything different.

As he got ready for the day (and by that he meant washing his face and not getting out of his pyjamas because he was feeling lazy) he thought to himself that maybe he should consider moving out of here more seriously. He'd considered it before, but it had always seemed more practical to just live at home. Still though - maybe it would be nice to be able to avoid his parents when necessary – like today, when he didn’t particularly want to have his mood brought down by them.

Still, he had to brave it.

Walking downstairs, he was greeted by his mom and a pile of pancakes. Not homemade, of course, but store bought and warmed up in the microwave.

He’d take it though – the pancakes would still be good.

After slathering them in syrup, he sat down to eat. There was little to no conversation – his mom knew that his brain didn’t like to function before he’d eaten anything.

But, once the eating was over with – that was when the conversation started.

His mom was looking at him with that expectant look that told him that he needed to start talking about something. She wanted to know things, and he had to deliver. Searching internally, he picked on the first thing that occurred to him.

“So I saw a friend the other day – he’s from Japan.” Probably the worst way he could have worded any of it, but it was too late to take it back.

His mom perked up. “Really? That’s so good!” Clearly her attachment to him getting more in touch with Japanese culture was still going strong.

“I know right?” Gii shifted, slightly uncomfortable. Damnit, he still needed to pretend like he was really doing this for his parents. “It’s been good to reconnect with my roots… and stuff.” How was he meant to word this again?

His mom smiled. “It’s very good baby, I’m proud of you. What does he do?”

Oh shit. No doubt his mom would want him to be mingling with other people of their ‘class’, as per usual. Why had he thought that this was a good thing to talk about?

He could try lying, sure. But no doubt that would just come back to bite him in the ass. So now he had to try to word this in a way that would sound good to his parents. “He’s that violinist from the function we had a few months ago?”

His mom didn’t seem all that impressed, as expected. “Oh… right…”

Gii hastened to try to defend himself. Or rather, to defend their friendship. “But he’s super nice and stuff! He’s a teacher, and…” he trailed off, seeing the way that his mom looked like she was glazing over.

“He sounds like a nice boy.” By his mom’s standards that was high praise.

“He is.”

Hopefully this wouldn’t make his parents too mad at him.

Well, if nothing else it was good that his mom was receptive to him talking about Takumi, even if it was just by description. She didn’t even ask to hear any more details than he offered, but that was still a good thing - she wasn't actively telling him to stop talking about it.

But then everything changed - his father walked into the room.

"What are you two talking about?" The tone was jovial, but Gii knew from experience that if they didn't tell him, bad things would happen.

Before he could say anything, to try to explain it in a way that would make him sound good to his father's ears, his mom spoke. "Oh, Gii was just telling me about his new friend that he saw for lunch the other day. He says they've spent quite a lot of time together, and that he likes him a lot."

That was literally the worst way his mom could possibly have explained it. there was no worse way.

"No, no, I never said that -" Gii didn't even get to finish his sentence.

"So you're happy to go gallivanting off with some man that you don't even know, but you won't dedicate yourself to finding a wife?" his father sounded on the borderline of outrage, and that was the worst line to be walking. What even was that logic?

Not to mention the fact that his parents seemed to be getting even more emotional about the idea that he should be out there looking for a wife. Not a girlfriend, not even a potential girlfriend, but jumping all the way down to assuming marriage. How exactly was Gii supposed to know immediately if he was going to marry someone? (He banished the thoughts that threatened to creep though his mind of marrying Takumi - that was so far-fetched as to be ridiculous.)

Unfortunately, he also knew that that line of defence would never work on his father.

"No, no, that's not it, I’m just meeting with friends just like all my others -"

His father shook his head. It was enough to make him silent, much as it also made him silently fume inside.

"No, I’ve decided. you must see more women - how else are you to find a wife?" He laughed, the sound hollow and fake. "I’m sure your mother can find someone else willing to date you."

Wow, way to make it sound like Gii was completely updateable.

Besides, he didn't want a wife. Regardless of his feelings on women, he didn't want to be married yet - he was only 25, he was still young enough to find someone that his parents would approve of that he wouldn’t hate to marry.

But despite the fact that his mom hadn't taken part in the discussion at all, she was nodding along with what his father was saying about who she should choose for his next date. It was probably along the lines of every other time they'd done this song and dance, where inevitably, the woman would be a complete dick and Gii would have disliked her even if he was attracted to women.

And his parents wondered why he ended up turning down all of their suggested matches.

He also couldn't help turn over the way his father had said that Takumi was 'some man he barely knew'. Where was he even getting that impression from? Gii hadn't talked to him about it at all, so there was no way he was taking it from anything he'd said on the matter.

Conclusion: his dad was weird, and should be ignored where possible. Unfortunately, that was only possible to an extent, and most of the time he just had to put up with it all.

“So Gii, you’ll go on this date, won’t you? She sounds like a lovely girl.” His mom’s voice broke him out of his thoughts, and he looked at her in confusion. Wait, when had they decided on who he’d go on a date with? Had they really decided it already? Because that didn’t seem particularly well thought out to him, not when he probably didn’t even know her.

But he had to say yes, otherwise that would be admitting that he hadnt ben paying attention. “Yes, of course.” He tried his best approximation of the smile of a straight man glad to be going on a date with a woman. He probably failed, but it seemed to be good enough for his parents, who visibly relaxed.

“I’m glad to hear it,” his father said, sounding like his work, friendly self that Gii knew better than to take at face value. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. It’ll be better than spending all your time with men – wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea, eh?”

Gii fought the impulse to point out that his parents barely spent any time together themselves. Their hypocrisy was most focussed on making sure that they would have heirs to hand the business on to later down the line, but it still made Gii slightly uncomfortable to think about. “Hopefully.” He strategically left out the part where he wasn’t actually all that hopeful of that happening at all.

If only he had the confidence to tell them any of these thoughts.

If only he had the confidence to be more open about his sexuality.

Maybe then, things with Takumi would have gone even better than they already were.

“So when is this thing happening?” Gii hoped that he hadn’t missed that part of the conversation, if it had even happened already.

His dad looked at his mom, as though to confirm something with her. That suggested that they hadn’t decided yet – and that made Gii feel a little less worried.

“Would tomorrow do?”

Shit.

It was a big fight to seem like that idea didn’t suck all the joy out of him.

Secretly, in his deepest desires, he’d been hoping to text Takumi today and make plans to meet up before he left for Japan.

If he was on a date that he didn’t even want to be on, then he would have no chance at seeing him.

And who knew when he’d see him next? When would he next be in America?

All in all, this was the worst thing that could happen at the worst time.

******

Gii sat there, trying to look like he was enjoying himself. Even if he had no intention of letting this 'date' get any further than just this, he at least needed to make sure that his parents had it reported back to them that he enjoyed being on it. Because he knew full well that if he didn't, they'd get mad. Again.

"So, what's it like growing up with so much money?" The blonde across the table shifted to place her hand over his. It should have been a totally innocent gesture, but coupled with that question and the flirtatious tone? Gii wasn't buying any of it.

It wasn't like he didn't have practice fielding those sorts of questions though. His parents usually had the worst taste in dates for him (that one exception aside) and really there was no wonder that he never wanted to pursue them any further.

Trying to subtly move his hand out of her clutches, he gave her an uncomfortable smile. "Oh, you know, it's... uuuh... not that great."

Uh oh.

She looked totally gobsmacked by this answer, and he knew that that had been the wrong answer. He should have just said 'it was great, I have so much gold stuff' (which wasn't true in the slightest) and she would have been happy with that.

Especially since he could practically see her fantasies of being married to a rich businessman who could have her as a kept woman, and she would have so much fancy stuff and get to go to all the parties. As if that was all it took to be married.

She leaned further forward. Her boobs were pushed even more into prominence – and really just made everything worse. Now he had to keep his gaze on her face, no matter what. Making eye contact seemed to be just as bad for giving her the wrong impression though, and she kept winking all through them ordering their food, as though that was really going to make any difference to what happened here today.

To tell the truth, Gii had been nervous about this date from the very moment his parents had told him where it would be taking place. Not that he hadn't been concerned about it as soon as it was decided, but the location just made it even worse.

He knew whereabouts Takumi was staying, of course, because of their meeting the other day. It had been fine for that time, but now? When this date that he didn't even want to be on was organised near where they'd met? It put him on edge. Why had his parents even agreed to make him go here? It was so far apart from where they'd normally go that he just couldn't fathom why they'd chosen it.

So now he had multiple things to be worried about, and all of them would have been bad enough by themselves. He was well and truly fucked.

Not that this woman had picked up on any of that. She continued to ask him weird, invasive questions, none of which he answered in full because why would he?

He did his best to keep his attention as vacant as possible, hoping that it would maybe keep her away from him. It didn’t seem to work though – it made him think that maybe she was more desperate to get with him than she was letting on. (it really wasn’t endearing her to him any more than she already was.)

Oh, how he wished the waiter hadn't placed them right in the window. He might be used to staring as far as it came to business, but it was an entirely different deal to be stared at just because they were there for passers-by to see. It honestly made the whole experience a whole lot worse - and that was saying something.

It was enough that he was being made uncomfortable by his date, he didn't need to be put on edge by everyone else too.

He took another look out of the window, half contemplating jumping out of it and escaping - and saw Takumi's surprised face peering back at him.

What the fuck?

For a second, Gii thought that he was seeing things, driven crazy by his frustration at the situation.

But no, his crush really was there, watching him on his date.

Shit.

Looking towards the woman, whose tits were on display for the whole world to see, and then back at Takumi, he saw just how bad this whole situation might look to an outsider. To have Takumi believe that he was a man who would enjoy that kind of spectacle, even if he was attracted to it, was abhorrent.

Takumi gave him a shy little wave. Okay, that was adorable. Gii practically wanted to coo.

Waving back, he stood from his chair. He wasn’t about to pass up this opportunity to see his crush once more before he had to leave, not even if it left a bad impression on this woman.

He rushed outside, telling her that he’d be back (he wasn’t enough of an asshole to just disappear). He had to get there before Takumi left again, otherwise… well, this would be a bad way to leave things between them. At least, as far as he was concerned.

As soon as he left the warmth of the restaurant, he shivered, and wished he’d taken his jacket with him. “ _Hey there_ ,” Takumi greeted him first. “ _What are you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be in there_?”

Gii shrugged. “ _I guess. I wanted to see you before you leave though – I thought that was more important_.”

Takumi cocked his head to the side. He looked a little surprised – and Gii didn’t really know why he was. Was it that strange that he’d want to see him? “ _That’s nice of you. I can’t really stop to chat though, I’m just getting some lunch before I have to head to the airport. I hope you enjoy your date though_.”

Before Gii could get a chance to refute that claim – the idea of him having fun with this was ridiculous – Takumi had already waved goodbye to him and moved on.

Well, that was shorter than Gii had expected. He watched Takumi leave, walking into a Starbucks across the street.

Had there been too much focus on the date he was on? It kinda seemed that way. The idea put him on edge – he didn’t want Takumi to think he was actually interested in this woman. That would be disastrous for his plans for trying to get Takumi to date him.

With a heavy heart, Gii turned back into the restaurant. He’d failed to get any meaningful interaction with his crush – and instead he had to get back to being on a date with a woman who only wanted him for his money. How was he meant to enjoy this situation in any way?

“Hi there,” the woman purred as he approached her again. He fought the instinct to shudder – he needed her to have a positive view of this date, even if he had no intention of contacting her after this.

“Hello.” Hopefully this terseness would set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. Maybe that would get the message across.

******

It made Gii’s day even worse when he got back home and finally got round to checking his phone.

Ordinarily it would have made his day much better to have a text from Takumi, who hadn’t done that before. (Plus it meant that he had Takumi’s number and oh god now they could chat casually.)

But this time?

[unknown number]  
hey Gii, it’s Takumi! I hope you had fun on your date.

It felt like it punched a hole in his chest.

The words were kind, and if Gii had been dating her for real, he was sure he would have appreciated it. But as it was? He couldn’t help but feel hurt, even though Takumi had no reason to think that they should be together instead.

No, he couldn’t let this continue. Even if he didn’t actually have a chance with Takumi, he didn’t feel right letting him continue to believe a lie.

The lie being that he was straight in any way.

[Gii]  
I didn’t, I swear! She’s nobody, it’s ju

Backspace, backspace. Nope, that sounded way too desperate.

[Gii]  
Actually, she’s just someone my parents set me up with, she meant nothi

Nope, backspace again. Damnit, why couldn’t he word this right?

[Gii]  
I wish I could have had fun, to be honest. My parents have a thing about setting up dates with women because I’m supposed to get married at some point, but somehow they all end up being total busts

Maybe it was the worst of all three of his attempts, but he sent it anyway. It would do the job.

Should he wait for a reply?

No, that would make it weird.

Wouldn’t it?

Would his messages even have the intended effect? Would Takumi… pick up on any gay vibes from them?

Honestly probably not, but he could hope.

That could only happen in his wildest dreams, where he’d be able to live his perfect life and be free from his parents’ influence. Instead? He was stuck being their dream child while his got shattered.

And now, no doubt, his parents would be desperate to know how it went. They’d been more and more forceful about it over the past few years, increasingly disappointed every time he returned with bad news on his lips.

(To be honest, that was why he sort of suspected that his dates had been worse and worse recently – they really were having to scrape the barrel to find them. Knowing that now, maybe he’d have agreed to see some of the first women he’d ‘dated’ permanently. Compared to the dregs he had to see now, they really didn’t seem half as bad as they had done when he first met them.)

His only consolation prize was the buzzing of his phone in his hand to let him know that Takumi had replied to his message.

With trepidation coursing through him, he opened the message.

[Takumi]  
that sounds awful! It didn’t seem that bad when I saw you guys

Oh thank god he was sympathetic. Gii didn’t know what he would have done if Takumi hadn’t understood, but he probably knew the kind of background Gii was dealing with having. They’d talked about how it wasn’t easy, after all.

[Gii]  
it was a big mistake :/

Hopefully that would fully get the message across. No matter what else they talked about, right now this was the most important thing to him.

And hopefully they’d keep talking. (although maybe not through text – the bill would be through the roof.)

******

He’d avoided his parents for as long as possible, but it couldn’t go on forever. Unfortunately.

What a shame he had to eat.

He skulked into the dining room, half hoping that his parents would maybe not see him, and he could just pick up some food and race back to his room.

That wish was not to be. Naturally; he had no luck.

“Hey there honey!” His mom greeted him brightly. “How did lunch go? I didn’t see you earlier.”

Of course she had to get right to the chase. “It –“ he started, prepared to tell her the bare faced truth like every other time. But then he saw the hope on her face, and he couldn’t bear to take that away from her again. Every other time it had killed him to make her sad, even though it had been true every time. “It went great.”

Wait, why he had said that?

His mom gasped. “Really?” She said disbelievingly.

Then all the air was squeezed from his lungs in a tight hug. “Mom…” he choked out. He didn’t even know what he wanted to say – probably ‘please let me breathe’, but he ended up saying nothing after all. What could he say? ‘Sorry, no, I didn’t, please pick someone better next time’?

No, there was nothing he could do that wouldn’t make him feel like shit right now. Even the fact that he’d lied wasn’t enough to make him regret it, not quite.

Even though he was going to have to stick to this lie now. And it was definitely going to kill him.


	9. Chapter 9

Gii blinked awake slowly.

For a second he had no idea what was going on. Why was his mom in his room? Why would she be, when he didn't have to go into work today?

Rubbing his eyes, he said, "what's going on?"

His mom smiled at him. "It’s time to get up! Your birthday breakfast is waiting for you!"

Oh, right. That's why today felt weird.

Kinda sad that he didn't have anything else to do today. But still, he was going to see some friends this weekend - that would have to do.

"Thanks mom," he croaked out, voice disused from sleep. "I’ll get dressed and come down."

Sometimes it wasn't too bad living at home though. He certainly wasn't going to complain about getting his breakfast made for him - and if his parents were in good moods, today should be good. Arguments were usually scarce in their household on birthdays - although that wasn't an absolute rule.

His mom left the room with a wink. Hopefully that meant that things would be good, not that they'd be bad.

Slowly, he got up and got dressed. It was more difficult than you'd think to decide on what he should wear - normally for a day at home he'd be as casual as he liked, but on special occasions like this they didn’t normally. It made it slightly difficult to know what to do.

Eventually he settled on smart-casual. He was pretty sure his parents would accept it, and really that was all that mattered right now. He personally didn’t really care what he wore – it was all about them. (Even more reason to move out.)

It was nice, to get breakfast. Overall it went okay – he’d definitely class it as the best interaction he’d had with his parents in the past few months. There was no talk of girlfriends, or work, or any of the things that Gii really didn’t like talking about.

In a way it was sort of heaven. He got to do what he wanted for once – or at least, what he wanted so long as his parents were okay with it.

But not everything could go the way he wanted – there were still things he had to put up with. They moved to their living room eventually – and that was when the part he didn’t enjoy so much about birthdays began.

He felt his heart sink into his stomach the moment he saw his mom walk through with a large binder in her hands.

That binder got brought out every birthday, and it was a full embarrassment every time. Not that it was the worst thing that could happen, but he disliked being reminded of how scrawny he used to look.

"I bet you just can't wait," his mom sang out. She knew that he didn't like doing this - but they also didn't give him much of a choice about it either.

“I’ve seen them all before,” Gii grumbled, half hoping that maybe that would put them off it.

His mom gave him a sly grin. “You haven’t though.” When Gii have her a questioning look, she spoke again. “I was looking through our collections of photos a few weeks ago, and I came across some pictures I’d not seen in a very long time. They’re from when you’re about ten – I think you’ll like them.”

Oh dear, that was one of the worst times. Gii had wondered why there weren’t as many pictures of him at that age, and there was his explanation. Or at least, part of it. “How did you manage to lose them for so long?” He asked suspiciously. That seemed like a weird thing to do.

His dad shrugged. “We honestly have no idea how it got missed all this time. They must just have been tucked back real far.”

Before his dad had even finished speaking, his mom had opened the binder and pulled out the familiar photos first. These were the ones that he’d seen the most often, the oldest ones. The ones of when he was a really little kid, in whatever terrible fashion his parents had thought to put him in in the 90s, which to be honest he didn’t even mind that much. He’d been a cute baby, he could admit that much.

He smiled as those were passed around, as his parents went over the familiar backstories to all of them.

Then came other ones that he’d seen plenty of times before, passing through the years. Presumably the new finds were being kept for last? That was the only explanation Gii could think of.

None of this was new to him – if anything it just brought him déjà vu for birthdays past, that they had really done this every year that he could remember. And really he didn’t even know why they insisted on torturing him with pictures of him in the bath as a baby. That was just weird.

But, once they’d stopped cooing and reminiscing (sometimes Gii wondered whether they really preferred the old him that they could boss around much more easily), the new ones brought out. Part of Gii was actually excited to see them – this would be something different for once.

When he saw the first few, he realised exactly what they were. Pictures of a trip to Japan they’d taken a long time ago, like he thought from when he was about 10.

It actually was nostalgic in a weird sort of way – maybe it was just his recent extra interest in Japan, but he found himself remembering stuff about that trip a little more.

He could hear his parents talking about the pictures of him with distant relatives, but that was slightly less interesting to him. He hadn’t seen those people in a long time – not that he didn’t care about them, but he barely knew them at all. They were much more interesting to his parents, who knew them better.

Then there were a couple of weird pictures, that didn’t quite fit with the rest of the set. It was weird that he’d pretty much been talking about this exact trip with Sachi without even knowing it.

They were weird, and yet he kinda liked to see that visual of them when they were that young – and he sort of wondered whether he should take a picture of it on his phone so that he could send it to Sachi later.

There were only about ten of those pictures, and a few of those were so blurry as to be almost not worth it at all. Setting those aside (his parents might still want them, they were weird like that sometimes) he flipped through the others.

After the pictures of him and Sachi, there was one hidden at the bottom of the pile.

Huh, that was strange. Gii didn't recognise the other boy in the photo. They must have known each other, for it to have been worth them taking the photo in the first place, but he didn't even remember it being taken. It was probably because of how busy that day had been in general, but still. weird, right.

Placing the others down on the coffee table in front of him, he studied the picture some more. He was sort of hoping that maybe if he saw something in it that hadn't been immediately obvious, that it would jog his memory and make things make sense.

The more he looked at it though, he only became more and more frustrated. Why was this picture even here? Why had this other kid been worth taking a picture of? Who was he?

Maybe he'd just been one of Sachi's friends? He was holding a violin, so clearly he'd been there for the recital. And it looked like it had pretty much the same type of background as all the other photos - there was no doubt that it had been at that event.

"Oh, I’ll take that," his mom swooped in out of nowhere and plucked the photo out of his grasp.

Gii frowned. "Wait, I was looking at that." He reached out his arm as though that would convince his mom to give him it back. Naturally, it didn't.

"You don't need it dear, it's just one of you and one of your funny little friends you made. You didn't know each other for long - I don't even know why it was in the pile with the rest of them." She tucked the photo in the middle of the bundle she had on her lap. That was annoying - now he'd never be able to find it again. "Why don't you go back to looking at you and Sachi? You two were such good friends back then."

Maybe he should have done that - but there was a niggling feeling in the back of his mind that there was something special about that photo, that he needed to see it again. That there was something he was missing. Like he should have known who it was.

"Are you sure? Because I wasn't done looking at it, and I really think - " he tried to argue.

"That's enough, Giichi." his dad cut him off, using his stern voice. Well, that was weird.

Was this picture really that special? Because honestly his parents' reaction to it was making Gii feel even more like there was something about that picture that he needed to remember - and his parents trying to keep secrets from him never worked out well.

He looked like he was looking at the pictures of him and Sachi, he was sure - there was an amusing picture of him trying to play Sachi’s violin and Sachi clutching at his ears - but he wasn't really looking at it. His focus was entirely on that picture that was hidden away.

What made things all the more suspicious was his parents beginning to whisper together, low enough that he had no idea what they were saying. It made him certain that there was something going on that they didn't want him to know. Sometimes that would just make him drop the subject - but other times, like this? It only made him more curious, especially since it involved him directly.

His parents were trying to make his own life a secret - and he didn't like it.

**

Somehow something about those pictures really stuck with him.

He still didn't know what it was about him that intrigued him so much, but he just couldn’t get that picture out of his head.

It stuck with him the entire day – when he was eating cake, answering messages from his friends, opening presents. That boy just wouldn’t leave him alone.

Not that he had masses of time to actually think about it. His parents were pretty much glued to his side from the start, not giving him a moment alone to try to come up with an answer. It was almost as if they didn’t want him to have that time – and given how strangely they were acting earlier, it honestly wouldn’t have surprised him all that much.

When he was finally able to get a minute to himself at the end of the day, he sat down heavily on his bed. He wasn’t going to get in it just yet, but he enjoyed the ability to just relax for a bit.

His head felt heavy with tiredness, but also with the worry that came from knowing his parents were hiding things from him. It wasn’t a good feeling, and he couldn't help but wonder whether he should try harder to ask them about it. Maybe if he really forced the issue, they'd give in?

Wait, no, that'd never work, not when they were always so adamant that they got to do whatever they wanted.

The more he thought about it, the more frustrated he became. The answer was right there, just out of reach, on the tip of his tongue...

_A boy dressed up for his first recital_

_The cute way he seemed shy about his playing_

_He played the same song as Sachi had, and privately Gii had thought he did it better_

_Asking him if he'd take a picture with him before they left_

_Him being painfully shy, and Gii only being more interested because of it_

_His parents hurrying him away the moment the event ended_

The day was suddenly crystal clear in his mind, all the moments he'd spent with this boy - with _Takumi_ \- highlighted in detail.

It took his breath away momentarily. Could this really have been his friend? Was it really so likely that they would meet again, fifteen years later, in completely different circumstances?

It would seem so.

How could he have forgotten about this?

The memories of begging his parents to let him spend more time with Takumi came to him, all the time he'd spent asking them for his details, any way he could to talk to him again.

And, with them, the memories of his parents telling him to not bother, to let it go, that he should forget about the whole thing.

Gii could see the pattern now.

Had they guessed who his new friend was? It would certainly explain a lot.

He spent a while sat there, on his bed, trying to reconcile the memory of the boy he'd known, and the man he knew now.

There were some similarities – they were both shy, both talented violin players.

Most importantly – he’d been right all this time. There had been a reason for him thinking Takumi was familiar for so long – he really had been.

But what should he do?

The instinct was to say something immediately. He remembered trying to search for Takumi through the early internet for so long, begging his parents to find him, that the longing returned and he wanted to do something about it as soon as possible.

But he had no idea whether Takumi remembered him – and if he did, if he would care about the connection they’d had as children. Even with all of that, Gii knew that the friendship they shared now was more important to him.

**

He sat on this information for weeks.

It slowly ate away at him every time he talked to his parents – it made him want to ask them what they thought they were doing in keeping this from him.

But there was nothing he could reasonably do - not when it came to his parents, anyway.

Takumi, on the other hand.... Well, he'd kept in contact a surprising amount, actually. Although they had to stay with using the Internet, since their phone bills would be far too expensive if they were to text.

Gii didn't quite know how he managed it, but somehow they were getting closer while Gii learned little else about Takumi's life. They'd talked plenty about Takumi's school, about his work there, and about Gii’s own work.

But there was nothing about his life outside of that, nothing about any more of his childhood, nothing that suggested he knew of their history.

The secret that they had known one another long ago sat in his chest, nestled away where nobody could ever find it.

It only made him more and more interested in Takumi's life, in what he had to say - and only increased his crush on him. The feelings he might have had as a child, and those he had now, might have been entirely different, but they did play into each other, and Gii knew that he wouldn't be able to separate them entirely.

But the more they talked, the more Gii wanted to tell Takumi about all this – it felt dishonest not to.

Even though he knew that it would be difficult – Takumi being in a different country and all – he was determined to do it.

It had to be done, it would be wrong not to.

Of course, that then made it incredibly convenient when Takumi messaged him to tell him that he was going to be in America again – for a holiday this time, instead of for work. That would give then even more time to just spend time together, and Gii knew well in advance that this would be his chance.

He could always tell him in a message, of course – they spoke often enough that it wouldn’t have been weird for them to talk. But it was something so big that it would never be able to get across how big it was unless it was in person, he just knew it.

It made him anxious for so much of the time he had to wait to see Takumi.

Still – it would almost certainly all be worth it.


	10. Chapter 10

Gii eyed up his phone on its spot on his desk.

C’mon, he thought, buzz. Please buzz.

At any moment now – okay, more like at some point this hour – he was meant to be getting a message from Takumi to say that his flight had landed in New York. While he didn’t know for sure exactly when Takumi’s flight was meant to be getting in, or when he would have a free minute to message, but he knew that he would do it eventually.

It didn’t stop him from wanting to check though, to see if there had been any messages. It made him want to get things hashed out with Takumi as quickly as possible – even though he knew that he couldn’t afford to be too hasty and make things weird between them.

The last text message he had from Takumi on his phone was from months ago, the last time he had been in America. Before he knew it, his phone was in his hand and he was looking at those messages. It was where he was expecting Takumi to send his message to, as opposed to the emails they’d been exchanging in the interim.

The glare of his computer screen brought him out of his thoughts on Takumi, reminding him that he did still have work to be getting on with. It was almost a shame, but he reluctantly put his phone back down and turned back to… well, whatever he’d been doing before. He’d not really even been paying attention then.

He then proceeded to spend the next half an hour in a space of limbo, where he wasn’t quite able to concentrate on his work, but he was also trying to ignore his phone as best he could.

There were also several false alarms – a few google alerts went off, he had email notifications about things that weren’t important right now, and generally by the end of it he wanted to throw the damn thing out the window.

It took him that long to realise that he wasn’t going to get any work done in this mindset.

Even though his father was right down the hallway, and in theory could come see how he was getting on at any moment, he took the chance that that wouldn’t happen (and it rarely did). Standing up, he went and tried to look at the view from his office window to calm himself down. It was usually pretty effective - and, sure enough, today it did manage to work to an extent.

It was nice, to just look out over all the business that a city entailed and to feel small. Most people didn’t enjoy that, but he spent so much of every day trying to be as big as possible while dealing with other people that it did good to remember how insignificant his problems were in the grand scheme of things.

Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be able to use that as an excuse to not do his work. He could hear movement in the corridor outside – there was no way of knowing whether it was someone trying to come in here, but he couldn’t take that chance.

Reluctantly, he went and sat back down. He did have things to be getting on with, to be fair, and it couldn’t hurt to try to get some work done while he waited.

It didn’t take long to realise that nobody had been trying to come in here, but it was too late, he’d already decided to do work.

Of course, that didn’t stop his phone buzzing with notifications incessantly. The first few times he pounced on it, unable to resist the idea of Takumi messaging him. It wasn’t him any of those times though, and he was forced to be more patient the next few, waiting until he had a reasonable gap in his work to check it.

The tenth time his phone buzzed, he eyed it suspiciously. He didn’t want to get his hopes up in case it wasn’t the message he wanted to receive – but also if it was what he wanted to hear, he didn’t want to miss out. It was the worst dilemma.

Sighing, he gave in to temptation.

[Takumi]  
Hey! Guess who’s here :)

His heart skipped a beat.

He raced to reply.

[Gii]  
Hooray! How was your flight?

It wasn’t weird to ask that, right?

Oh no, now his urge to check his messages was even stronger than it had already been. Now that he knew that Takumi would be replying to his messages, it was much harder to not check every two seconds.

That was how he spent the rest of their conversation. Even though he knew that he would be notified when he got a message, he still couldn’t shake the urge to make sure that there were no more.

It did afford him the opportunity to make plans to see Takumi though. He was disappointed to hear that they wouldn’t be able to meet up for a few days – he already had plans to go places, which didn’t surprise him all that much.

Still though – he would get to see Takumi. They could talk about their past.

Finally.

**

Gii threw open the door of the house. It was heavy, and unwieldy, and every time he had to use it, it was ever so slightly annoying. Honestly most of the time they didn't even use this main door, they used one round the side of the house that was much more accessible.

But he wanted to impress Takumi - that was the mission here. And so the front door it was, the most impressive way he could think to make his entrance into his house.

He'd not even heard the bell go - his friend had just texted him that he was here, and Gii had gone down to collect him. It was probably for the best as well - if the doorbell had been rung, it was likely that his parents would have been the ones to answer the door. And that would have been a definite disaster, no matter how nice Takumi was to them.

"Hi!" Takumi said. he'd been facing the other way when Gii opened the door, admiring the gardens out the front. Gii couldn't blame him - the various trees and bushes were sculpted perfectly, with flowers in all different colours garnishing the edges. When he was younger Gii had always longed to play in it, and had almost never been allowed. As a boy it had made him annoyed that he couldn't get up close to the things he admired so much - and as an adult he found himself still adhering to that instruction.

The look on his face suggested that he really was in awe of Gii's family home. It sort of made him feel a punch of guilt - should he maybe have not made it seem like he was showing off his wealth? - but then he changed his mind. This was his life, his reality. If he were to ask Takumi out, he'd just have to accept that this was what he was used to.

"Hey! Come in." Gii stood back from the door a little to allow Takumi to make his way inside. He seemed a bit nervous - not that Gii could blame him for that at all. To be fair, their entire house was big, the wooden panelling making the whole entrance hall seem dark and shadowy and big.

Out of instinct, Takumi took off his shoes - and then began to look around, presumably realising that there was nowhere within reach to put them. That was something Gii always thought his parents overlooked when they bought this particular house.

"Here, let me take those." Gii reached out a hand to take his shoes off him, being careful to make sure that their hands didn’t touch.

Takumi was happy enough to relinquish them to Gii, and he quickly jogged over to the shoe cupboard that lay a little way off to the side. It honestly didn't look like anything from the outside, just like another door in the room.

Still, Gii put them in it, near the entrance, and then made his way back over to Takumi. He could see how his friend was still seemingly uncomfortable in the large space, rubbing at his forearms as though to warm himself up.

"It's so big," he commented to Gii as he came within hearing distance. "How do you even manage to call a place like this home?" He chuckled.

Gii laughed too - it was either that or be offended. "Practice," he answered.

Takumi laughed, and Gii was glad that he did. "Well I think it would take me a lot of practice to get used to," he said. Gii tried not to take that as a personal sign - it probably meant nothing but what lay on the surface.

"Do you want to come up to my room?" Gii said, changing the subject. Perhaps it was a little mean, but the hallway was always draughty, and he preferred to stay out of it where possible.

Takumi nodded - he looked pretty eager to see the rest of the house, something Gii had become familiar with any time he'd invited friends over.

Gii led him up the staircase and down the corridors. He could practically feel Takumi losing his sense of direction - he didn’t blame him, if he hadn't grown up here he might have been exactly the same way.

Eventually (somehow it felt longer under the knowledge that Takumi was likely taking all of this in and likely judging it) they reached his room. Suddenly paranoia swept over Gii - had he tidied? Did he move those socks off his floor? What if somehow his teenage journal was on his desk even though he knew it was tucked away in the back of his bookshelf? What if he'd forgotten to take out the trash and Takumi smelled it? - even though he knew that all of his fears were unfounded.

He had no choice but to open the door, unless he wanted to make even more of a fool of himself than he already had done. Trying to be as smooth as possible, he swept a theatrical arm across the room, as though it were a display.

Takumi gasped - although he couldn't tell exactly why. he didn't want to ask either - what if Takumi thought that it was something completely obvious?

Still, he was glad to see that he was right, and he hadn't needed to be afraid. The only thing on his desk was his laptop, where it always was, and that picture, which he'd snaffled from his mom's photo collection while she was out. It might technically be a little unethical, but this was much more important than her hypothetical wrath right now.

"What do you think?" Perhaps asking would prompt Takumi into talking. Gii could see the way that he still seemed a little gobsmacked at his room, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open a little.

He'd already known that Takumi hadn't exactly grown up in the same way he did, but he hadn't quite expected for him to be so shocked at just his room. He had the things that most of the other people he knew did - although to be fair, a lot of them were just as rich as he was, and so it was much harder to judge what was 'normal' or not. Still, his argument from earlier still stood - Takumi should know what he was getting into, whether they ended up in a relationship after today or not.

"It's..." Takumi managed to get out, before turning to him. he honestly looked like he didn't know what to say - or maybe like he did, but was afraid to say it.

"It's okay, even if you hate it I won't get mad." Gii tried to smile at him to make him less nervous.

it seemed to work - Takumi took a deep breath. “I don’t hate it,” he began, “it’s just so… so much _more_ than what I’ve got.”

For a second that wording made no sense. And then he realised what he meant, and yep, his initial worries had been correct. Damnit.

“Do… you do wanna come in?” He tried asking.

Takumi hesitated – and then nodded.

Gii took pleasure in showing him his things – namely, his book collection, and a few of the awards he had. Those were the things he prized the most, and Takumi seemed to be happy seeing them. Maybe it would make him realise that all the expensive stuff was mostly the stuff that he didn’t care about as much.

Then Takumi’s perceptive gaze fell on the photo.

Shit – Gii had been hoping to save that for later, for after he’d told Takumi about everything. That probably wasn’t a good place to start – it would make it look like he’d known the whole time and had been keeping it from him on purpose. It was meant to just be supplementary evidence, to be brought out to prove that he wasn’t lying.

“What’s this?” he asked, frowning. “It looks a lot like…” he didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t really have to. He looked up at Gii – and as he did so, Gii realised how guilty his expression must look right now. That wouldn’t be helping.

Trying to school his face into submission, Gii walked closer. So much for the speech he’d spent time preparing in his head – he’d just have to wing this one. “Yeah, that’s me and you,” he said softly.

He heard Takumi’s sharp intake of breath even from where he was standing. “What?” it didn’t sound like the question was being directed at him, but he answered it anyway.

“I didn’t find this out until a few weeks ago,” he began, trying to make it as clear as he could that this was not something that had been arranged, or organised, or in any way happened with his knowledge. Takumi didn’t look like he was about to run screaming just yet, and so he continued. “I found this photo on my birthday.” He tapped it with one finger. “I didn’t even recognise it at first. I mean, I knew where it had been taken, but for the other boy in the photo… well, that took a little longer.”

“You mean you didn’t…?” Takumi’s frown was still in place, and Gii wanted to do his best to remove it.

“No, I didn’t know it was you. It took me longer than I’d like to admit to recognise you there – I’d not thought about that day in so long that I didn’t remember this photo or why it had been taken,” Gii explained. “But when I remembered…” he left the sentence hanging, hoping that Takumi would chime in and help him out here.

Takumi looked up at him with wide eyes. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, placing the photo back down on the table. “I know that’s me in the photo, but I don’t remember anything about it. I went to so many recitals back then, met so many people – I couldn’t possibly tell you anything about that day in particular.”

Gii felt his heart sink. So much for thinking that Takumi would remember him too.

“Oh… well, that’s okay, I didn’t remember it either until not long ago,” he hurried to make sure that Takumi didn’t feel bad about not remembering. It wasn’t like it wasn’t something he’d already predicted.

Takumi shrugged. It only made him sort of feel worse about it – it looked very much like Takumi didn’t really care. That was disappointing – he’d been so excited to find out about this connection they had shared, and now he didn’t really want anything to do with it. That was… unfortunate.

“It’s okay though – it’s kinda cool, don’t you think?” Takumi looked up at him, and suddenly everything was okay.

He nodded, trying to summon the right emotions that wouldn’t make him seem weird about this. It probably wouldn’t do to show just how much it meant to him, given that Takumi didn’t even remember it happening. “Yeah, I do.” Okay, he wasn’t able to completely keep the grin from creeping onto his face.

Perhaps some of his desperation to acknowledge their former connection showed on his face, because Takumi didn’t seem as blasé about it as he’d formerly seemed. In fact, he went ahead and asked Gii how much else he remembered about it – and well, Gii wasn’t about to turn that opportunity down.

Takumi stayed looking at that picture for quite a lot of the explanation. What he was seeing in it Gii couldn’t imagine, but he was just glad that Takumi hadn’t run screaming yet.

“Look, Takumi…” Takumi turned round, and when Gii looked into those big brown eyes… well, he just couldn’t help himself. “Will you go on a date with me?”

Gii didn’t know which of them was more shocked that he’d actually asked that. On a personal level, he didn’t know where the courage had come from – but he thought that Takumi hadn’t been expecting it either, which made sense to him. They’d not really done much that would suggest romantic intentions as of yet.

“I…” Takumi trailed off, looking like he didn’t know what he wanted to say.

Gii didn’t blame him – he was almost certainly going to reject him. There was no way that Takumi was going to -

“Okay.”

For a second Gii thought he was hearing things. It had been so quiet that he couldn’t possibly have actually said that.

But then he saw Takumi nodding, and couldn’t believe his eyes either. “Wait, really?” He sounded about as disbelieving as he felt – even if it maybe ruined the moment a little, but he couldn’t help it.

Takumi nodded, shuffling his feet. “Yeah, why not.”

“That’s – that’s wonderful.”

This whole day felt like a dream, like none of it should be real. And yet here it was.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A final chapter! Boy am I ready to be done with this

Takumi tried not to shiver as he saw Gii shift closer to him. He knew that his new boyfriend wouldn’t try to touch him – they’d been over the fact that he couldn’t be touched enough times – but it didn’t stop his subconsciousness from thinking that it might happen.

He could see Gii’s hand twitch – he was sure that he wanted to hold his hand, and Takumi couldn’t blame him. That was what normal couples did, right?

Not for the first time, Takumi cursed himself for not being normal. Not like everyone else. It wasn’t like that feeling was new to him, but it hurt every time. No amount of wishing could remove what had been done to him, or make him capable of touch again.

He snuck another glance at Gii – the other seemed to be looking around, but Takumi knew him well enough to know that he’d probably been staring again. Not in a creepy way – Takumi found himself enjoying the unfamiliar attention – but he had gathered from it just how much Gii cared about him.

Enough for him to tell him his secret though?

Takumi didn’t think so.

Not yet.

He didn’t want to scare him away, after all. There was a reason he didn’t go blasting it out for everyone to see – he didn’t want to be seen as any more of a weirdo than he already was.

At least, by everyone but Gii.

That he could appreciate, at least.

“Is it not good?” Gii talking to him broke him out of his thoughts.

He had to smile – Gii was so thoughtful. “It’s good, don’t worry.”

The incongruency of speaking his native Japanese in America always threw him a little – even though it was his mother tongue, he never seemed to know what to say to Gii. He started eating his sandwich again – it was a simple date they were on, but a good one nonetheless. Takumi always enjoyed going out with his boyfriend, no matter what they ended up doing. (To be fair, a lot of the time it was food due to how busy Gii was a lot of the time. Takumi understood being busy – being a teacher left him little free time, although he was permitted to travel to fulfil his other performance commitments.)

What could he even say to a businessman like Gii? He never really knew what to say – he spent so much of his time with him worrying that Gii would be bored if he began to talk about his life that he rarely said anything at all. But then, he wasn’t convinced that Gii knew what to say to him either, which sometimes made him suspicious. How could someone like Gii get nervous around him? It made no sense.

Eventually they had a sedate conversation about what Takumi had been up to in the time he’d not been seeing Gii. It was mostly touristy stuff, which Takumi felt a little embarrassed about telling Gii, but it was the only thing he could think of to say.

Sometimes, when they found themselves in situations like this, Takumi found himself more and more tempted to tell Gii everything – after all, as his boyfriend did he not deserve to know? He didn’t seem like the kind of person who would spread such a thing, nor did Takumi think he would mock him for it.

But self-preservation told him ‘not yet’. Wait. This relationship was still new – what if things went wrong? Even though they’d spent ages talking, they didn’t know one another deeply yet. It was possible Gii would freak out entirely about it.

Maybe one day though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, if it doesn't feel done, that's because there'll probably be a sequel. We'll see.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts? Did you like it? Did it make sense? Please leave me a comment and let me know.
> 
> If you want to chat about... anything really, you can find me at my twitter @Alltheaus, or my tumblr @whatevenisthisbloganymore
> 
> Thanks for reading ^_^


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